#10: Throwing It All Away
Artist: Genesis
It was one of those rare nights that Santana's mother was home from work. She had traded shifts with a co-worker and worked a day for once, instead of a night. Now she was sitting not three feet away from Santana, intently watching her favorite soap, all while politely eating the pie Santana made.
Santana watched her mom out of the corner of her eye, quiet as she watched and thought. On the outside, she looked like she was enjoying watching a soap with her mom, but on the inside, she was a blur of confusion and fear. She was fighting inside herself, something had awoken inside her and was now fighting to be free of the cage it had been kept in. It was screaming in triumph, vocalizing its freedom, calling for its allies to come join the freedom's fight. The cage on the other hand, wasn't having any of it. It was shouting out words that kept the thing quiet, if only for a moment. Hateful, hurtful words that tore out of the beaten, broken bloody thing that was Santana's heart like bullets out of a gun. It infused the cage with strength, fighting even the most joyful cries from the thing within. Santana had built the cage around the thing when she was younger, and year by year, hour by hour, she had built it to be a strong, unbreakable thing. Every mumbled word of hate added a layer to the cage. Every gay slur and stereotype added a lock. Every fear and worry that Santana let slip, it ate it in, becoming bigger and stronger to prevent the thing inside it from breaking free.
A part of Santana desperately cheered for the thing inside the cage. She knew that it was a part of her, a part that made her who she was. She had some hope, somewhere in her withered heart, that the thing would be triumphant and break through its bonds to be free. But a larger, more fear driven part of Santana begged the cage to hold the thing inside it. She feared that thing more than she had ever feared anything. She had endured abuse, heartbreak and beatings. She could deal with that, for she was brave and strong. But when it came to that thing, she was no more than a child. That thing shone in her eyes, like a beacon, calling it to her, and it took all of her strength to tether her feet, refusing to go towards it.
So here she sat, feeling the tossing and turning of the struggle within her. She knew that if the thing in the cage won, she'd never be the same. However, she also knew that if the thing in the cage lost, and hid again, she'd be missing a part of herself. She gasped as the thing made one last attempt, throwing itself at the cage, a part of it skimming through the cracks and rising through her until it reached her mouth. Only the beating of her broken, battered heart warned her in time. She closed her mouth on it, knowing that a second ago, she was about to do it. She had almost come out to her mom.
'Cause you know I know
baby
that I don't wanna go.
We cannot live together
we cannot live apart
