So, why are you here today?
Being home from uni is very painful, some days. In a way I've always been my mother's child. I don't really understand my father. He was a child of World War II and his additude dates from that era. He's racist, homophobic, and xenophobic. It seems somehow fitting that his only son be gay.
Have you told him yet?
I haven't told him yet. I've only really known for about three years, but it's clear that I have been my entire life. I can't tell him. He wouldn't understand.
Why do you think that?
Well — for example, he forced me through scouting, and now that I've laid all of that behind me, he still brings it up from time to time. He's rather ill, you see. He spent most of his life as cheap labour; he went back to school after he was laid off, but illness overtook him before he could really get a job. In a sense, his life has been wasted. So he has to live through me.
You resent him for that?
No, I love him, really. It's just that I can't stand him. We don't talk very much. We don't see anything eye to eye. He loves Bush. He voted for the Gay Marriage Ban in our state, and gloated about it. Yet still I have my filial duties. Like having a child — I mean, a son. Someone to carry on the family name. But that will never happen. I can't have children. The curse of homosexuality.
There's only a week of winter break left. I just keep telling myself that my friends will be waiting for me to get back. There's a boy I love, and I think he loves me... but all this angst Father would never understand. Chin up, m'boy, chin up.
Broken Horn sighs...