You Can't Do That

As of late, I've been attempting to keep myself from writing essays, as many people have come to believe that they are my general writing format. This is not true; my general writing format is something far more whimsical which only ever touches upon topics such as civil rights or the enigmatic definition of 'freedom' by uncontrollable circumstances. Anatasha Pierce, for example, couldn't care less for the civil rights movement currently underway in our nation, regardless of if she's a driving force behind an equally important movement to banish the senseless oppression of the Magi in Angland; Tyrndeis has no intention of robbing David Aemir of his belief in free will, despite her frequent insistence upon his having been led through paths that would have been impossible without the guidance of a higher force; and although Miana Kampf and her deranged version of Latvia is based off of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, I am not attempting to force the world to recognize the horror that was the Holocaust.
Suffice to say, my writing is not a documentary of any type. I am not attempting to expose the world for the decietful place that it is, nor the people for the horrible amalgamations of sinful flesh that they are. In no way am I working on a social commentary.
Regardless, there are certain topics that I must take time away from my fiction to address which are of dire importance to the world in which not only I, but most anyone else who will read this lives in.

Like it or not, I am a member of a subsection of American society which has been beaten down for far too long, denied 'basic human rights' as our government refers to them. Of course I'm referring to homosexual society.

I feel like a broken record at this point for how frequently I've had to voice this, but I'm still denied the right to marry whomever I should love in the vast majority of America. It seems absurd that I should even still need to touch on this subject, but the fact of the matter is that we live in a time where absurdity is far more common than logic would dictate. How is it that I, a man admittedly unlike many others yet still made of the same substances, denied the right to marry another man, while a woman is allowed to marry five men in the course of a single year? How is it that my marrying another man would make a mockery of this 'sacred tradition,' while I could marry dozens of woman over my lifetime? The idiocy of this thought is evident should one take the time to even begin to think. The edges of the 'reasons' fray when even the slightest bit of tension is applied to the cloth; there's no weight, there's no evidence, there's nothing. Of course, there's the old standby. My love is less viable than the love that a man and a woman would share.
My parents married when I was twelve years old. By the time that I turned thirteen, they wanted to kill each other. I'm now eighteen, they're still married, and they still want to kill each other. There are thousands of couples in America who have the same problems, thousands more who want to kill each other before the thought of marriage even crosses their mind, and still thousands more who never see it past their first year of marriage. Tell me, how is my love less valid than theirs? How is my love less valid than the love of the couple that got married ten minutes after they met on a drunken night in Vegas?

On top of being unable to marry in this wonderful country, I cannot give blood due to the fact that I'm far more prone to promiscuous behavior than a straight man is. I'm not even going to comment on this; I believe that the irony of the situation will leak through without commentary.

How We Signify A Beginning

For most people, a beginning is signified by fairly common events; brief contacts that you wished were longer, glances that seem to compress the entirety of your emotional being into a single moment, whispers between you and your soon-to-be, loose embraces that you're too fearful to make tighter, perhaps even the gently running of your fingertips over her body, committing her curves to your memory.
For others, a beginning is signified by stolen moments in abandoned rooms, secret kisses behind the frosted glass of locked doors, gripping his body as you pull him close, feeling as if he's the only real thing in the world, as if you're locked on to him for dear life, constantly charged with the fear of discovery, the confusion of misinterpreted wrong-doings and the inexhaustible desire for Now.
For still others, a beginning is signified by keystrokes upon a computer or by frenzied twitches of a thumb on a keypad, by unadulterated language and the raw ecstasy of words, charged by the batteries at your disposal and the numbness in your over-worked hands.

I'm not sure how I signify a beginning. I've gone through the latter of the three multiple times now, and I can't say that I've ever had a beginning which was not promptly followed by an explosive end. I'd like to be able to feel the former, but unfortunately, my orientation somewhat limits my ability to display much affection in public without living with the constant fear of becoming the target of a poor, misguided fool with a baseball bat- which is a fear that I live with regardless, at least whenever I tempt fate by venturing out into public situations.
It frightens me that society is so determined to force gay men to live up to their stereotypes. Behind closed doors, what's to stop two lovers from moving too quickly for their own good? Assume that they realize this and decide that there's no reason to wade through the courtship process? Would it not be much more gratifying to simply move directly to the fucking? And assume that society continues to deny gay men and women the right to marry- what reason is there for monogamy? Homosexuals as a people have need to endure unspeakable mental tortures from the day that they even begin to suspect themselves as being Different; who's to say that whatever tortures their ex-lovers would inflict upon them for being unfaithful would even so much as hold a candle to the torment of living as a homosexual teenager in today's world?

As a matter of personal choice, I elect not to engage in instantly-gratifying sexual encounters... but in all honesty, that's a choice which I'm beginning to lose faith in. Once upon a time, my morals were indestructible walls which kept me from losing all sense of righteousness in a world gone haywire; these days I can't seem to find what was logical about them in the first place.
I'm not suggesting that it's ever right to visit a bath house or work a corner to get your sexual gratification, because I still don't believe that to be true in any sense. Nor am I suggesting that I'm going to break down and let the next shmuk with a boner use me to relieve themselves. I'm not at all sure of what it is that I'm suggesting, at least in regards to my personal choices... but I do know that I can appreciate the situations which drive men to seek refuge in bath houses and on the corners, and I can understand the mentalities of the people for whom those shmuks are searching.

We signify a beginning in a myriad of different ways; through touch, through stolen moments behind closed doors, and even through the incessant clicking of a keyboard or beeping of a keypad. A beginning is a beautiful thing, the occurrence and realization of which can lead to awe-inspiring connections and life-long comforts. It's a shame to think that so inconsequential a thing as fear has the power to rob any of us of a beginning and force us directly to the climax, a climax which is truly nothing without a solid foundation; it's a shame to think that misinterpretations, misjudgments and outright idiocy can rob a single person of a glorious commencement.
We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Need To Know

The thing that most people need to know about me is that I'm psychic. Yes, 'psychic' is a broad term ranging from telekinesis, a talent which I do not possess, all the way to telepathy, with which I am indeed cursed, and even including 'the Gift of Prophesy,' yet another annoyance that I face in my day-to-day life.

Mind, the truth behind psychics has been vastly warped by the media and a general lack of understanding in society. No, I am incapable of directly influencing the actions of other people with my mind, though I am quite persuasive due to my ability to indirectly influence thought; yes, I do hear other peoples' thoughts, but it is chaotic and beyond comprehension unless I am quite attached to the person who I am attempting to hear; yes, physical contact heightens the connection, but no, I do not believe that it is so for every psychic. But I don't want to focus on my telepathy, nor do I want to explain the way in which it functions; I've explained it to the people who matter for the moment, and I shall only explain it further to anyone who I believed needs to know at my own discretion.

I'm 'gifted' with 'Prophesy.' Essentially, this means that I know the general flow of events as caused by the vast uncertainty of Cosmic actions; it means that I know the answer to the question before I know what the question is. But it also means that I know that I'm incapable of knowing the answer without knowing the question; it means that I as a consciousness understand the impossibility of my mind to comprehend the workings of the Cosmos on a scale where time is a negligible variable. It means that I'm in contradiction with myself, at least where time is concerned.

The 'gift of Prophesy' is a constant annoyance in my life. Imagine knowing that a person will die- and not only that they will die, since we all know that on some level, but rather when and how they will die... and being incapable of action, because the death is necessary. Imagine the tediousness of asking a question, the complex answer to which you already know. Imagine the anguish of acting as if you were something that you know you're not? In this sense, my entire life has been a sham. I have feigned interest in every person that I have ever met, because I have known that I would have an impact upon them and eventually spur them on to their destiny; I have pretended to love, hate, envy and be disinterested in people who I needed to love, hate, envy and be disinterested in.

People who think of these things must ask themselves 'Why?' And even I must ask myself, Why do I continue to enforce Fate? Can I deviate? If I deviate, will I know I have, or will it have been predetermined?
For as close as I innately am to Fate, I do not know the answer. Every moment of my life, I have kept my head down and watched where I was stepping, and for every step I've taken, I've met a road that was lain before I took the step. I cannot act to stop death, because death is final; I must ask the question because the answer must be spoken, be it for the speaker's own knowledge, the inhalation and exhalation of the breath or the ultimate destination of the voice; I must be what I have become as surely as I must keep my eyes, regardless of their faulty construction. I am as the waking dead, nothing more than a puppet to act upon the whims of the master and nothing more than dead weight upon the strings.

Why do I share this? Why do I have any intention to welcome anyone into my version of reality? For the same reason I do anything else. Those who believe in my words will find that they hold weight, and those who believe me senseless will find that I am. Regardless, the thought of it will impact their decisions in the future, spurring them on towards their goals, whatever they may or may not be and regardless of if they understand what they are.

Momentary, Transitory II

To some extent, my resolution for this year has already been met and exceeded, as proven by the utterance of the following phrase; "Even the greatest of us fall sometimes. But it is the greater still who rise again."

That's it. I'm not going to explain, and I'm not going to elaborate. Take it or leave it.

Letter to Nancy

I apologize for having taken so long to respond- I'll explain in a moment. Before I do, I would just like to let you know that if I'm not back in Massachusetts before the beginning of March, I intend to hitchhike my way back, so either way, I should be back by April.

In regards to the long response time... Well, as you might imagine now that I've passed the two year mark, I'm not feeling exceptionally human. I've been patently incapable of forcing myself to endure the outrageous climate of this place, and the fact that the limits of idiocy are constantly being tested by the general populace only serves as a hindrance when I attempt to make any contact with anyone through any means available to me. The longer that I'm here, the more absurd that it seems to me that anyone would assume that I'd been healthy enough for so cataclysmic a move, and the more that I begin to think that this entire ordeal will take me decades to adequately work out to the point where I'm capable of functioning on a 'normal' level once more.
It's hard for me to believe that it's been two years since I've been home, and almost as long since my last bit of meaningful human contact. It seems as if my profound loneliness has found a way to attach itself to the wall of my heart and evolve into some grotesquely pulsating tumor. Suffice to say, I'm not doing very well at all, and I would gladly make my home under a bush at this point just to be close to the people about whom I care- not that I don't care about my family mind you, but considering that my brother is rooting for me, my mother understands why I need to go and I haven't spoken with my father since he fractured my skull and I broke his jaw, I don't really see that type of 'love' as being very binding at the moment, nor do I exceptionally care about the existence of my mother's husband beyond his capacity to provide some vague sort of financial stability for my mother, because God knows that he doesn't provide emotional support or mental well-being.

I hope you're doing well though. It seems to me as if I'm enduring enough shit on a daily basis that the world should be in one of those rare periods of peace where some mad scientist cures cancer, a miscellaneous team of botanists discovers a cure for HIV/AIDs, and you can buy a soda for a nickle- and wouldn't you know that according to my sources, two out of three of them are actually happening? Now if only we had a working pesticide for those blood-sucking moths in India, we'd be golden.
-Charles

Nil Value

I'm not much. I understand that, and to be honest, I even embrace it to some extent; if I'm not worth much, then how I can be disappointed when I don't get much? If I'm not useful, how can I criticize uselessness? If I'm nothing, how can I be anything but ecstatic at the prospect of something?
I've already alluded to what caused me to feel this worthless. I've a rather uncaring family full of rather insulting individuals, and I've spent my life as the penultimate display of schadenfreude- I've been the butt of jokes, the subject of ridicule, and object of disgust for so many people, I've forgotten what it's like to have a reason beyond self-depreciation.
So, I have to ask. And I know that no one actually reads this, so I don't expect an answer, but I still need to pose the question... Why am I here? What do I matter? And how is it that I constantly seem to find myself in the same situation? How is it that every time I put myself out there to look for something to give me a reason to continue on with this miserable, hum-drum life of mine, it seems as if the Cosmos is intent on proving to me that I'm even more useless and inconsequential than I feel?

I'm better for you than he is, whoever you and he are. I'm better because, no matter what, he's going to end up treating you like shit. It's unavoidable human nature; we take commonalities for granted, and I assure you that one day, and one day soon, he'll find you a commonality. But I won't, because I can't. I've resigned myself to living out the rest of my days alone, which is a horribly depressing thing for an eighteen year old to accept- but it means that I would bequeath you with whatever I could to keep you happy, it means that I would do anything to make you mine... but you don't seem to care, because I'm not him. I'm not anything that you think you need. I'm not anything at all.

For Posterity

My life has never been glorious. True, it's never been exceptionally difficult... but it's never been as easy as it's seemed, either.

I was born the second son of an unwed mother- which in that day and age was a somewhat normal occurrence, but which still brings a small amount of shame unto me. For five years, I knew my father only through short visits which were won in a court battle which raged for the first two years of my life. During those two years, I spent quite a lot of time with my mother's mother, who's house we lived in until I was six.

When I did turn six, my parents had 'solved' all of their problems and decided to rent an apartment 'together.' Of course, it was my mother who paid most of the bills- my father was supporting not only his own mother with the help of his brother, my uncle Joe, but was also supporting Boston Tropical Fish and Reptiles (his pet store) and his outrageous obsession with animals (this was the time period where we constantly had dozens of snakes and lizards in the house, along with three fish tanks- two of which were salt-water). For seven years, my mother, my father, my brother and I coexisted in that lavish apartment. Most often, my brother received preferential treatment while I was consistently abused in one form or another, be it having been thrown backwards into a recliner because my brother had hit my back and I couldn't feel my legs or having myself devalued by my father's insistence that listening to a song for the tenth time was more important than listening to what I had to say. Regardless of all things, we were never uncomfortable in terms of finances, and I enjoyed after-school visits to my father's mother's house and weekends with my mother's mother. I loved my grandmothers very much; they were the parents that I didn't have, and my parents were the negligent relatives I never wanted.

When I was twelve, my mother's mother died. I believe a backstory is needed here.
My mother's mother lived in a two-story house with one of her ten sons. At the time, another of her sons was living on the front porch; I forget the reason. Her bedroom was right off of the kitchen. Normally, my grandmother woke up at six AM, and my mother would drop by after she dropped my brother and I off at school to take her for coffee. That morning, my grandmother hadn't woken up, and neither of her sons- who lived in the house- had checked on her. She was in her bed for hours, presumably unconscious, until my mother made her way to her house and called an ambulance. She'd had a heart attack.
She spent a while in Mass General before she transferred to another facility in some city that I've forgotten the name of. She never got her voice back from the time that she was admitted. She lived out her last few days hooked up to machines, voiceless and without hearing because the 'doctors' hadn't noticed that she needed a hearing aid.
I did not go to the hospital the day before she died. My mother says that she pointed out the window. She thought that my grandmother meant she was going to leave soon, and I guess that in one sense, she did- just not in the way that my mother had hoped. My grandmother, the woman from who's head I had once ripped a chunk of hair for insulting my father (and oh how right she was), the woman who had scratched at a scratch-and-sniff sticker with a pen, the woman who had been pickled-tink and squeezably fresh, had died.
What followed was an ordeal that I can't even begin to remember. My grandmother's estate was divided amongst eleven greedy, ungrateful children, two of whom had let her rot in her bedroom and nine of whom had virtually abandoned her once at the first chance they got. My mother didn't vie for a piece of her mother's legacy; she took a framed photo of herself, my grandmother and my older brother, and she never looked back.

When I was thirteen, my father's mother died. My father's mother had lived in a palatial three-storied house with a basement and an immense backyard. One afternoon, she told my father that her chest was hurting her, so he left work and took her to the hospital. He got her a wheelchair and told her to wait while he parked the car, but she walked herself into the hospital without him. She had a massive heart attack during her examination. Apparently, she hadn't been taking her medication for weeks. No one knows why, because she never woke up... at least, not enough to communicate. She spent a few days in a semi-unconscious state, hooked up to machines,barely alive... and then she was gone. I saw her once in the hospital. That was it. I couldn't stand to be there, I didn't want to accept that she could be like that so soon after my mother's mother had been in the same position, only she was so much better- she could communicate, she could see, but my father's mother didn't show any signs of recognition.
I learned long after she died that she'd been suicidal after my grandfather had died. I don't think that suicidal is the right word though; I could never imagine her being that bad... I can imagine her without hope. I can imagine anyone without hope, because I was without hope for so long after she died that it seems impossible that there can be a man alive today with a shred of hope left to lose.
She had been the Arbiter. She had been fairness incarnate. She had been so much more like a mother to me than my own mother had the power to be, and I don't think that there's a person in this world beside myself who can understand how or why that doesn't lessen my mother's place so much as it heightens my grandmother's. She was where I hid when my parents argued, which was ever so frequently... She had been my only refuge. And she was gone.

Shortly after my grandmother died, we began the process of moving ourselves out of the apartment that had been our home for so many years. We didn't have to make sacrifices- my grandmother's house... or, more appropriately, my father's house was only a short drive away. And we had a week to move everything there, and more than enough space to keep it since my parents planned on throwing out just about everything that had belonged to my grandmother, even going so far as to rip off the wallpaper and replace the front-room window. Like I said, we didn't have to make sacrifices... but I did. I had to, I mean. I wasn't a child anymore. At thirteen years old, I had lost my safety net. I'd lost my hope, I'd lost my direction... In short, I'd lost my mind. I'd shut down, and an inactive boy doesn't need reminders of his past. I threw out toys that I'd had since I was a baby. I threw out Baby Chick, my first stuffed animal, and I threw out my Blankie. I remember a night when I'd thought I was old enough to do that; I'd left the two of them at my mother's mother's house while I spent the night with my father. The end result was that I burst into hysterical tears, forcing my father to drive across town in the middle of the night to get them for me. But I wasn't a child anymore, so they went out with the trash, and I've regretted that decision ever since I made it.
We finally got ourselves to my father's house, and everything changed. The walls were repainted, the furniture was thrown to the curb and replaced, my grandmother's bed was shoved into the shed, my parents took the master bedroom while my brother and I shared my father's old room- my uncle was still living with us. We weren't as financially stable as we were before, so my parents argued constantly. I realized that I hated my father- it's because of him that I have more scars than anyone is entitled to having. Yelling sets me to shivering, slamming spurs me into dissociative episodes, rage causes blackouts, and I don't know how to deal with my anger in a constructive manner.
Somehow, everything going on in my life unlocked some portion of my mind, and my genius erupted forth. Where once I'd been an average student, I was now unspeakably bored by my As. Math, English, Science- it didn't matter, I mastered it with ease. I became a social being; where before I'd had only three friends, I was now the acquaintance of most everyone in my class, and where once I'd been petrified to speak to teachers, I was now having discussions with them on a daily basis.

Eventually, I realized that I was gay. To be honest, I knew that I was gay when I was twelve. I just didn't accept it as reality until after an arduous road, littered with the waste of things that I'd rather not remembered and lost in a drunken haze. What did I do? I don't remember. Did I like it? At the time, I suppose I had to have. Would I ever- I won't even finish the question because the answer is no.
I came out. First to Ashley, the girl to whom I had proclaimed my love. Then to the people who I actually cared about- my closest friends, Colton, Rob and DJ. They didn't much like it, but the fact that I still consider them friends shows that they actually deserve the title.
Eventually, I came out to my mother, who came out to my brother and father for me against my wishes. What followed was the most harsh form of mental abuse that a human could possibly endure; I underwent patronization from my brother, shunning by my father, and clumsy attempts at brain washing from my mother. I was insulted, I was belittled, I was disbelieved, I was consistently the target of personal attacks, and I heard the five words that I was secretly dreading most, the five words which ripped a hole in my chest and practically killed me by themselves. "What would your grandmother think." Does it matter which one? They'd both been better parents to me than my biological donors had been, which made it exceptionally insulting that my mother had been the one to ask it.
For a while, my life had collapsed. I put on a brave face when I went to school, and it drooped a bit by the end of the day when I was with my friends- but they always picked me up when I fell, bless them all.
Sadly, this was when David entered my life. For a long time, I couldn't talk about David without wanting to slash something, be it his throat or my wrists, but I think that I'm healthy enough to say that he was my personal Devil.

Eventually, I began to see a therapist. Well, I began to see three therapists to be honest; the first one I disliked and the second one I cancelled the appointment with, so I ended up seeing my mother's old therapist who I'd actually met as a child. Georgia Green.
Georgia saved my life. I feel comfortable saying this, because it's entirely true; had it not been for her, I would have killed myself and been happy to do it. No, it wasn't all her- I had help from teachers who I consider to be friends, and friends who I consider to be teachers, and to be honest, I'm still fighting the battle... but I'm still here, and that's a victory in and of itself I think.
One morning, I paged her. She called me immediately after, and the first thing I said to her was, "I'm too depressed," which was perfectly true; I'd just had my parents issue a chins on me, which essentially marked me as a problem child because I was depressed, and David had just 'dumped' me for the first time, and was continuing to fuck with my head. What followed was a car ride to the Mass General in Chelsea, during which I endured my father yelling at my mother and insulting me as much as he possibly could in between screaming at 'bad drivers.' I talked to Georgia. I talked to a second therapist. I endured another ride with my parents to Mass General in Boston, where I would be admitted. On the way, there was of course more yelling and accusations. In the waiting room, there were only sly remarks, accusations and quiet insults. In the room with the therapist at Mass General, there was more yelling, insults and false accusations, this time accompanied by outright lies.
The end result was that I found myself in a mental ward for two weeks. I was put on Prozak and Chlonopin. I was actually happy, and I was sleeping again.
Reenter David, reopen Pandora's Box. I'll save you the long description; a few months of sanity, 'happy' relationship, crap piled up, hospital for a week and a half. Mind, all this long time, my school performance has been suffering; I've now missed a month due to hospitalizations, atleast three times that due to extenuating circumstances, I've stopped doing homework and I can't focus in class (even though I'm still aceing the tests)... My life was a trainwreck at this point.

Let's fast forward a bit here. I clean up my act; I manage to accidentally cut David out of my life (best accident since onion rings), I clean up my act without the use of antidepressants, and it's a new school year. Sure, I was held back, but at least I get a second chance at it.
And then my parents decide that it's time to move to Florida. 1,500mi away from the friends who gave me a reason to live long enough to get to the therapist who convinced me to exist and meet the people who gave me purpose, right at the start of my actual recovery from the depths of insanity.
... Since that point forward, I've once again shut down, only this time, there hasn't been anyone to force me into action, and I can't do it myself. For the past two years, I've been uselessly enduring continued insults, accusations and assertations that I am indeed useless. I've weathered countless arguments between my parents, I've lost everything that I held dear in any sense of the word, and to be perfectly honest, I forget what it feels like to be in the company of another human being.
Ain't life grand?