The 5th Beginning

As a child, I wrote a lot. I wrote poems that had to rhyme, and stories that escalated and ended too fast. I wrote a lot, because I didn’t have much else to do and my imagination had no limitations, was endless and without critique. But there came an age that I put down my writer’s pen and moved off into other things, like karate and guitar and photography, but those things floated back in my line of interest after a while. There was just something about writing that pulled me back, as if it had never let go.

I wrote stories for a while, with bad plots and unplanned timelines, and I posted them online under a username that I was sure no one would ever find. I stuck to stories for a year and a bit, and then when I was fifteen poetry developed a certain beauty to me that I couldn’t quite shake.

I think it started at school when we were studying a poem called ‘Visiting Hour’. The poet talked about visiting someone in hospital and I realized that the poet was just saying things but twisting them to sound interesting and kind of beautiful in a sad way.

To be able to not say something, but in a way, say exactly what you mean was like therapy for me.

The first real piece of poetry I ever wrote was called ‘Apologies’. The title says it all. It consisted of everything that I was sorry for, and most of it, if not all, was aimed at my mother.

I don’t suppose I’ve spoken about my mother much yet, and I think it’s because I’m still sorry. I think I’ll always be sorry when it comes to her.

I always felt like I’d burdened her. I felt like her aches and her pains were all my fault. The fact that her skin began to sag and her eyes lost their spark was my fault.

It was Mother’s day when I came out to her. I was fifteen, nearly sixteen, and it was nighttime, just pressing on 9 o’clock. She was driving, talking happily about what my aunt had gotten for mother’s day, and I don’t know why, but I started crying.

I remember how when she realized her hand reached out and hugged mine. My mother’s hands were always warm. And then she asked me what was wrong, and I remember just shaking my head, trying to swallow everything down, trying not to notice my whole insides collapsing and thinking that I couldn’t do it.

“I can’t tell you.” I had choked out between sharp inhales and exhales.

“Of course you can.” She said, her grip on my fingers warm and loving. “I know something’s been bothering you recently, so just tell me what it is.”
I’m almost certain that I refused a few more times.

When I finally looked up, a small ocean clouding up in my eyes, the streetlights had painted her in shadows of orange, moving across her skin.

Our eyes met and I said it.

“Mum…I’m gay.”

Everything paused then. She looked away. She let go of my hand. And then she laughed – chuckled, and I can’t imagine what she was thinking or feeling.

I thought she was going to hate me. I thought she was going to look at me and feel as though the image she had of her little girl would be shattered and distorted.  I thought that she’d never look at me again. I thought that I’d never feel the comfort of her hands again. I just thought she was going to really hate me.

“No you’re not. Don’t be silly.” Was the first thing I remember her saying. And then she looked at me again, saw the tears resting in my eyes, and her face seemed to fall like leaves in autumn.

She didn’t say much after that, not until we pulled into our drive way and the car fell asleep.

“How do you know?” She asked.

“I just know.”

It was dark in the car – quiet. But I could hear the tidal waves of thoughts crashing around inside of my mind.

“Yuri,” She said softly, “You’re still so young…and…and inexperienced. There’s no way that you can know for sure. You’re not even ually active yet-“

“I’ve had a girlfriend, mum.”

“What? Who?”

“Victoria.”

“Oh…”

The silence solidified between, settling at our chins.

I stared at my shoes, thinking that all this was so surreal. All I really wanted from her was acceptance. I wanted her to lunge at me, pull me into her, so I could drown in the circle of her arms, and everything would