You have a place in my heart no one else could ever have

- f. Scott Fitzgerald

Matthew

Maladroit.

To lack in adroitness. Be unskillful, awkward, tactless, clumsy etc.

I, maladroit and confused and clumsy never knew stoicism nor tactic. An array of ideas yet no time to suffice. Glass half empty, as water dripped over the tips.

Carcass mummified.

"I'm leaving soon."

"When"

"In three weeks, maybe four."

"Why are you only just telling me."

"I didn't think it to be so important to you, plus you knew I was to leave soon enough."

"Yeah but I didn't know when, you should've told me."

He smiled benignly.

"Well I've told you now"

"I'm going to miss you," I felt a tear at my nostril and cheek at every atom or muscle or illustration of restraint plucking.

"I'll miss you too, I be back soon enough though."

"Can I come with you."

He half-assed a giggle.

"You know you can't, it's not that bad. You finally get the independence I know I begged for at your age."

"I can't deal with them alone."

"Yes you can, they are our parents," I tasted doubt, snorted up a nostril like crystal.

"Hardly"

He stared at me, searching for guilt or gold. For hesitance in my speech, for doubt impairing my sneer.

He found none.

"Matthew"

"Adam"

"Matthew, grow up. They can be annoying but they're not quite insufferable. You need to learn to deal with situations you don't always like.

You'll be 17 in September, and it's nearly August."

"You don't understand they are insufferable."

"Why"

I hesitated, my sneer halted by scouring.

"Because-"

His eyes widened eyebrow lifting immense.

"Well they-"

Disinterest, like listening to the perpetual ramblings of an insolent child.

"They"

"They," he mocked dragging it on for effect.

"They. You know why!" I almost roared as my ramblings came to an abrupt halt.

"No, I don't know Matthew,

Is there something you're not telling me?"

He looked me in the eyes, attempting to find the answer himself. However unfruitful it may have been. In each iris an undoing of elation.

"Matthew what aren't telling me."

"Nothing"

"Matthew"

I stared, mind empty of word.

"You're hiding something, what is it."

The grip of my shoulders by coarse hands tightened. Now carved with his imprint.

"I can't tell you."

"Why"

I looked to his feet then past him.

"Because I can't, you'll. I can't, please drop it."

Teary eyes blocking my vision of him, yet I still saw his red haze.

"Are they hurting you."

"What, no" I hesitated too much for his liking.

"They are, aren't they"

For some moments, he no longer heard my pleas, anger travelling from the neck up on him, hand searching for his phone and his eyes facing God.

I felt like I had no choice, like I between fire and brimstone. Like it was my neck or theirs and I as Frankenstein or fool chose mine. Because no matter what they could say to me they were my parents.

Whether insufferable or not.

"Adam"

"What" he pushed my hand off his.

"I'm gay"

Halted.

Silence gripping steadfast to a grimace I tasted. Like the ricochet of Goliath or the massacre of sentiments.

His swift anger resurrected blue, and I went cold to touch. My body coiled within itself, apt to be hit or turn to salt; be burnt to a crisp as I resided sunken in Ba'al. I was no longer self but cut of unwinding silk dropping to his feet, a letterbox dusted with age. He could trample me like discarded vestment, beneath his rubber-soled boot.

"What"

You learn with time every verse and testament is more digestible than authenticity.

"I'm gay, and you know how they are."

"Are you sure"

"Yes," I screamed to the heavens or a gesture to the void I call self, " I'm sure."

"How do you know that"

"How did you know you were straight, huh. Or did you never question your character."

He, now less angry but nowhere closer to calm, "You didn't answer the question how did you know"

"Why are you asking me this?"

"You could be wrong so I want you to think it through before you start making claims like that."

"Claims like what, what claim," my testimony scratched my throat like wine dripping down my cheek i indulged in his blood " Adam what claims am I making."

"You know what you said."

"And what off it. What's so despicable about it, Adam."

He gawked as though I were an insolent child. I never felt more inferior to him ;never more had I felt his eyes peel my skin, leaving me red and bruised under the sunlight.

Naked. And no longer his apple-pie.

I was not his brother anymore.

"You know what the bible says about that Matthew," my face compressed, a scowl "you know what's wrong with it."

"No, no I don't."

"Leviticus 18:22, Do not have sexual relations with a man," more tears fell, I couldn't hold my pride firm as I once had "as one does with a woman."

I stood there, semi-composed. Compartmentalised to homosexual and no more, to the black sheep. I knew this would happen but each prayer I knew wasn't being receive. Each cry I knew wasn't heard, would always be for the better outcome.

"Adam"

I began blubbering as though my woe would change his mind.

"Don't you think I know that, don't you think those verses are ingrained into my mind. Don't you think each night an image of hell doesn't haunt me.

The only thing is now I'm," he looked to me so innocently for a moment.

"Adam I'm exhausted, I'm tired of running from who I am. So please don't lecture me.

I've lectured myself enough."

And with no more words exchanged he left.

He didn't even appease me with an answer or a scowl or something for me to know his standing.

So I wept within each wall inclosing my skull, parting it like a bullet. It seems like I really was a masochist, or a senseless child.