"Expertly finished", my "own little space." What a treat!
To keep my difference hidden, beneath our house.
A space for all my quirks, all the strange things that boys shouldn't want.
All that shit needs a lot of space, so I get the entire basement.
Wall to bone-colored wall, "go ahead and decorate."
Fill this room with all of your girly, faggy, fruity crap. Just keep it away from upstairs.
So we can appear normal. So he can look at his living room and pretend he has the son he wanted.
I do decorate. I make the best of it.
In the closet, beneath the clothes too expensive, too tight, too odd for a small-town Ohio boy
There's a box of my old childhood things. My power rangers and my tea set.
But I'll take it, this cavernous tomb in which to keep my deviance.
Here, I can recline on costly linens. A bed too large for a slight boy
But big enough to imagine
Tall, dark and handsome
Expressive eyes, of no particular hue
Alluring lips, strong jaw, chiseled cheekbones
Broad shoulders, muscles straining under tanned skin
Arms around me, a solid chest to absorb my apprehension
Hands that could encircle my waist
Hold me tight
Hold me close
Wrong?
It can't be wrong
to dream.
He knows.
He's known all along.
Of course he knows.
My closet door was cellophane,
At once suffocating and revealing.
How could I doubt, that he fucking knows?
Everybody knows.
It's not my choice, when to inform them.
But how could I doubt
My father's love?
My father, who didn't know how to talk to me about
Salon haircuts and
Moisturizing routines and
Alexander McQueen and Liza Minelli and 600 thread count sheets
So he bought them for me instead.
My father, who gave a design-obsessed kid an entire basement to decorate,
Who bought me all the tea sets and tight jeans,
all the girly, faggy, fruity crap I wanted.
My father, who embraces me
And promises me
That it's not wrong
to dream
No matter who you're dreaming of;
That I'm not wrong.
I'm all right, I'm the son he didn't expect
But never regretted.