ElHijoProdigoFINAL by Oscar Rodriguez

CONTENT WARNINGS:

El Hijo Pródigo discusses varying sensitive topics that may upset the reader. I have noted each chapter’s potentially upsetting content and advise readers to be conscious of them.

‘Fiona, La Monstra!’ contains the following content warnings: Violence

‘Our Guiding Light’ contains the following content warnings: Sexism, homophobia, transphobia

‘Pixels Glare’ contains the following content warnings: Pornographic, child abuse, sexual assault, homophobia

‘An angel contorted by a tourniquet’ contains the following content warnings: Body hatred, fatphobia, self-harm, eating disorders, child abuse

‘Hawks at the neck’ contains the following content warnings: Child abuse, homophobia

DISCLAIMER:

This work is auto fictive (based on true events) It reflects the author’s present recollections of experiences over time. Creative nonfiction depends on memory, and human memory is deeply flawed. For this reason, El Hijo Pródigo takes creative liberties on names and characteristics, includes events that have been compressed, and dialogue that has been recreated for literary purposes.

silver steps

Exhausted from the tongue tied rope in my intestine, sick out my mouth, jumping through hoops to understand you.

What do you mean? Don’t be so mean.

Silent disdain when I’ve got to warn you of the seaweed wrapped round my throat, rocks deep in my soles, slicing my toes to never stay afloat.

I think I’ve lost you beneath the blue, I think I’ve lost you… under the crash of war knows no peace, take me as property to leave you swimming.

When I awash ashore carry me home with the green gone, no shimmer left on my skin,

body abused.

I’ve given it all to you.

The waters tucked our love away, hidden under coral, guppies swimming away.

Fiona, la Monstra!

A moan whispers from the bedroom. I sit on the sofa with a boy around my age, and his older sister Shrek drowns out the noise next to us. We cringe with every bang of the headboard

“Why is mami crying?” the little boy asked.

“She’s not crying,” his sister says, turning up the volume.

Shrek carries Fiona over his shoulder, she screams and kicks for him to let go! Doesn’t she know he’s there rescue her?

My father walks out the door, sweat lining his forehead. He gives me a wide smile.

“How’s the film?” he ruffles my hair

“So good!” I swing my feet against the sofa.

“Que bueno, I’m going to help Maria through her mattress out. No sera largo,” he pats my back and creeps back into the room.

The woman, Maria, walks out, with my father grazing his hand over her waist. She’s a bigger woman, with a skimpy top revealing all her stomach rolls. Her eyes were beautiful though, done up with lashes and blue spread across them. My daddy’s big doll, I called her.

She comes to her children, kissing their cheeks and asking to fill them up with pozole. They shook their head no.

The daughter looks past her, upset.

“Que pasa, mija?” her mother rubs her shoulder. She snaps, “Y cuando se va el?”

The woman giggles and pinches the girl’s cheek, “He won’t, mija. He cares.”

Donkey screams at an ogre with a tiara! She reveals herself to be Fiona, cursed to transform into an ogre every night. Only to become human at sunrise, she is split between a

monster and her beauty. All she needs is true love’s kiss to break the curse and stay in her true form.

Me and the kids move to the windowsill to watch my father push the mattress out of the window. He enlists us to help him push, so we arm up against it and push, push, and – we shout gloriously when it falls out! It lands perfectly into his truck’s bed.

The sun glitters the sweat on his broad shoulders and thick arms. He was big and strong, somewhat weird in the face but with charisma he welded his own way. All that was missing was his skin turned green.

“Let’s go to the landfill, Samuel,” he grabs my wrist.

I wave bye to the kids and their mother. The little boy waves back but his sister turns her back. And the woman only smirked, goodbye.

I run into Mami’s arms! Her pregnant belly keeps us apart but still she places kisses all over me. Her flowy linen dress covers her down to her knees in a flowery print.

“What have you done today, bebe?” she holds my fingers.

“I watched Shrek today!”

“Y que pasa en Shrek?” she grazes my cheek with her rings.

“Well, Shrek is a big green monster!”

“Ay, que feo!”

“Si, pero, he falls in love with a beautiful woman!”

Mami chuckles, “How does that work?”

I pull her down to meet my lips to her ears.

“Because she has a secret… she’s an ogre too!”

My father strides into the kitchen, hair swept back with sweat. Mami takes me into the living room and sits me on the sofa. She tucks Winnie the Pooh into my arms and turns on the television. She walks back out, blowing me a kiss as she exits.

Mami speaks loudly to him. But he barks back. She hisses at him for infidelity, but he bites her for boredom. She storms up the stairs, shouting words I didn’t know. He follows up but tumbles back with a pile of clothes smashing his face.

Makka Pakka rides his tricycle through the idyllic forest, void of wind and goblins, in search of stones. He washes them with a squeaky sponge, leaving a trail of clean stones behind him.

‘Calmate! Don’t do this!” my father shouts from the bottom.

“And you shouldn’t have taken him to that perra!” Mami screams.

A red shirt, black pants, a belt, a leader shoe, a white shirt, underwear, and the other leather shoe, all hit him as a trash bag floated down next to him.

Makka Pakka is lost and alone, with piles of rocks lining a path that’s made a circle. He pushes his tricycle along, humming a sad note with his head down.

My father, on his knees, begs, “Por favor, Marci! Perdóname!”

She rubs her stomach, “Lo ves? Es tu hija! Do you not think?”

My father begged for a pat on his head, but my mother sent him on his way, to Maria’s.

“And I want to meet this slut!” she yelled as the door slammed.

Pinky Ponk appears from the clouds, chiming with beeps and fans! Makka Pakka notices and follows Pinky Ponk’s trail of stardust. He pushes his tricycle, looking up to the sky at the airship taking him back to the Garden. After a song and dance with all his friends, Makka Pakka finally rests in bed with new, clean stone.

In the morning, Mami puts me in the car without giving me breakfast. I whine about it, but she tells me we’ll get McDonalds on the way.

We arrive at the other woman’s townhouse. My father and Maria already stand outside by the door. Mami parks up and tells me to stay put. Through the tinted glass, my mom raises her finger at Maria She smacks my mom’s hand away

Mami lunges at the other woman’s hoops, ripping them out in a blood curling scream.

Maria yanks on my mom’s black hair, but Mami pulls down Maria’s top, revealing her fat boob. They yanked and slapped each other, while my father stood to the side, watching.

Maria flops onto the ground with my mother’s foot on her breast. My father pulls Mami off her, screaming and kicking at the other woman He shoves her into the front passenger seat She screams one last time.

My father hops into the driver’s seat, reverses and picks up the pace.

“I’m hungry!” I kick on the back his seat.

My mom begins to sob in her palms. My father tries to console her, but she shudders away from him. I look out behind the window, to see the other woman laid on the concrete. Her face in her palms too, while her daughter hugged her chest.

My father replies, “Ya vamos, Samuel. McDonald’s?”

He puts on the radio, quite loudly.

I got hotcakes with honey and sausages. My mom got a sore head and busted lip.

mechanical being

Arms extend across the aisle, rubbing their grease on you once again

Knees kick unhealed bruises, shades of violet on skin never given a chance.

Shackles stay on with reality’s grasp, No matter the heat of the oven, no matter the beat of a whip.

In the bath, they’ll scrub skin to bare meat, clean the dirt off the soles, ensure there is no residue of stepped on defeat.

Trust in the gatekeepers

Arms extend across the aisle, replacing you with a twin with a bullet for a head, and God in its breathe.

Can’t pretend for a second act?

Douse yourself in gasoline, find warmth in the engine of the mechanical being they need you to be.

Let the fuel burn up, come full circle in its metal twine, exhaust spew out the sores.

The six that never healed.

Extend your arms across the aisle, and place your wounds on them

For the first time.

Our Guiding Light

The pebbles crackled under my white-turned-grey shoes. I kick my feet up, sending rocks flying to my sister’s face. Sara’s angry scream whistled through the air, and she’d return it with rocks from her hands.

Rays bled through the branches and fell a warm fire on our smooth skin. The breeze kept the heat from suffocating us as we explored our new garden. It was smaller than before, and it didn’t have space for the swing set my father bought us. But after the roof caved in, and a fugitive hid in our shed, and a neighbor had been shot, and because another neighbor had beat me; We moved to a garden of granite and tall weeds, on a hill leading down to a river.

Mami was inside the trailer helping my father take the toilet out. She was scared of anything previously owned or used, worried it’d have the evil remnants of the owners before.

Though we had met the previous tenants when we came to view it. They were a Chinese family, a mom and dad with a son. They had left some old toys behind as a gift, but Mami had already binned it all. And my father stomped out the trailer with the toilet in his arms and dumped it on top of them.

With a big exhale, he calls for me to help him.

I moaned, “I’m playing with the girls!”

“No, no. You come help me, tu eres un hombre! Ayudame!”

I sighed, and obliged, letting go of the pebbles

My sisters’ laughter mellowed as I picked up bits of cracked ceramic and rotten wood. The trailer echoed with my father’s hammering and Mami’s prayers.

“Los chinos adoran dioses falsos,” my mom told me, her lips quivering.

“Y nosotros?”

“Nosotros,” she braced me, “conocemos la salvación, Samuel.”

I drag a pipe out to the bin, clanging it against the concrete. The sun sends tangerine on the tin roofs, and onto the boy across the road. My new neighbor.

He had jet black waves and a blushing smile. I smirked and waved with pipe in hand. He cackled when it fell down onto me. He waved back too.

After that, we begin walking together to the bus stop each morning. We’d sit and play Minecraft on my iPod, which he was envious of. We didn’t have any classes together, except for gym where’d I watch him sprint the mile while I paced. But he’d walk slower on our way back down the hill before we’d go our separate ways in the evening.

In the summer, we explored the woods at the bottom of the hill. A river trinkled through it, with towering trees and muddy slopes. We visited the abandoned tree house where they say a boy was killed. We would run for our lives when a stick cracked under our feet. One day, we went far into the woods and found the bottomless lake where all the bodies laid.

“I dare you to go in!” he pushed me toward it.

“I can’t swim, John!” I pounced back.

“It’s not deep, he shoved me nearer, “I triple dog dare you!”

“Well, I quadruple dog dare you,” I pulled him on top of me.

He chuckled, “That’s not how dares work, Sam ”

John had dark brown eyes with freckles of lighter hazel in the light. I held his hand for a few seconds too long that time by the lake. He pulled away and we went back home, theorizing who had killed the little boy. Perhaps it was the old white man at the end of our street, our parents always warned us of him.

J + O. Our initials stained the pages of notebooks with hearts and eyes. It’s all I knew how to draw, with the occasional stick figure of us on bicycles.

J + O. I hadn’t thought to hide my notebooks, so it’d lay spread open on my car-print bed sheets. At dusk after school, my mom flipped through the pages of bicycles, trees, eyeballs, and hearts to find his name scribbled with mine. Enveloped with red hearts that bled through the notebook.

She questioned me, “Samuel, who are you in love with?”

The sun reached into my room and covered the blue walls with its flaming hue.

As a son, I owed her the truth, “My friend, John.”

The light bounces on mirror and silver, striking my eyes and my mom became white.

“John?”

“He lives across the street, we go into the woods!”

The white strikes me!

The sun began to cry out, “What’s wrong?”

And it whined down to a darkness.

The blue walls fervent again.

An answer came on Sunday morning.

“Leviticus, chapter twenty,” the Brother’s flipped pages breathe into the mic, “verse thirteen.” He reads:

“And when a man lies down with a male the same as one lies down with a woman, both of them have done a detestable thing. They should be put to death without fail. Their own blood is upon them.”

I drew dots in my notebook, at random. I connected them to create an outline of a… thing.

“Brothers and Sisters, today I am warning all of you of Satan’s plague on the family: the spread and acceptance of homosexuals, lesbians and transgenders,” the Brother sings to us.

The thing is sometimes a vehicle, a cloud but most of the time, a monster.

“Jehovah God made man and woman to complement one another. To fill the earth with His children and bring each other joy!”

This time I drew cyclops. Hordes of them in black ink and I named each one. Glorpe. Tukki. Samuel.

“Samuel!” my father whisper shouted. He took the pen out of my hand and slapped my thigh. He pointed to the Brother with his thick brows furrowed at me. I sighed and obliged.

“But homosexuality doesn’t bring that Homosexuality brings loneliness, perversion, illness and ultimately death. If not by their own desire, but by Armageddon come!”

My mother began walking me to the bus stop each morning. She’d send me off with a kiss on the forehead. I stopped sitting with John and another boy took my place. I’d ride my bicycle up and down the hills, passing by the other kids laughing in the woods.

John was with them, covered in mud and a wide smile across his face. He waved at me.

And I waved back, for a few seconds too long.

Too long to notice the pothole that sent me flying on concrete. I scraped my elbows to the bone, with blood dripping down my arms as I wrestled the tire stuck on my foot.

“But turn to First of Corinthians, chapter six, verse eleven,” the Brother commanded. He reads:

“And yet that is what some of you were. But you have been washed clean, but you have been sanctified, but you have been declared righteous in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and with the spirit of our God.”

There was hope for me.

John came running, “Sam! You’re bleeding!”

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” I choked out.

John grabs my mangled bike, “Let me help you.”

“No,” I mutter.

I pulled at the handle. But he held it tight in his palms.

“Sam? You’re bleeding,” he whimpers.

I yank the bike out of his hand.

“I can take it, John.”

The bicycle screeches against the concrete, muffling the sobs of pain. The blood became a sleeve, leaving dots of me for John to follow.

The summer’s gust of cool air dried the tear lines on my face. I arrived tortured to my garden of pebbles, and I look back down to the bottom.

John stood there, watching. But he began to walk away from the pothole, back to the woods where their laughing fits could coddle him. I fell onto my bruised knees, crying to my parents about my torn elbows.

I kept quiet about my broken heart.

step one

I’m still purging the pills of force-fed mania that led me into my coma.

Possibly day dreaming, but couldn’t tell the difference between love and hate.

Now I’m falling in love with crocheted strangers, arms of cotton and polyester.

A pillow in the fields of wooden spikes with all my men’s heads, on tight

So soft.

Perhaps insanity is creeping into the backseat, whispering to me.

“You know the deal, you know the deal,” as I weep on the steering wheel.

Crashing into the feet of the ruined Garden, into that good old tree.

Opening my fist, mid-air, to let the fruit fall in, for that final bite.

So sweet.

Pixels Glare

His head shined with a sticky oil, slipping through his fist. He slaps it against his thigh, with a bearded grin Hard nipples poke out of his unbuttoned shirt. Sweat slides down his chest to his smoot stomach.

“Faster, baby. Faster,” he demands.

I suck on my fingers, bobbing up and down. I look up to him.

His pits are wet and bites mark his lip as he thrusts further into his fist.

“I wanna worship you,” I moan out.

He laughs, stroking his thick shaft as I slip fingers inside me.

A roaring groan blasts in my ear.

“You’re such a good boy,” he strokes deeper, “Fuck yourself for me.”

I smile wide and do what I’m told despite the pain. I exaggerate my moans and it tricks me into pleasure, and after a minute, I’m begging him to fuck me instead. But he holds back, slipping words of affirmation, “Deeper, deeper,” as I spread myself across the sheets. I lay my head back, becoming smaller in my body.

I loop myself inward, a whining cat screeching for him with an arched back. His veins enlarge, his eyes roll back with an ape-like pant. Monkey-man shoves it deeper into his calloused hands. Monkey-man wants to stretch me apart, leave me bruised, unable to walk and feed me to his friends.

Baby kitten’s whimpers send him reaching for his chest. I giggle, begging him to lose himself inside me and never pull out. Monkey-man finally whimpers. His muscles shake with one last thrust, choking his cock hard in his palm. White ropes shoot on his glistening skin. I moan for him to finish one more time.

Monkey-man laughs, “I’ll catch you another time, baby boy.”

The screen goes black.

A void mirrors back to me, agape with flesh. Finally sore again.

I click onto the next.

A yellow O-block sits perfectly in the corner. I push on the tiny right arrow, watching it glide down into place. But here comes a blue Z-block, with nowhere to comfortably sit it on. The space is becoming tighter, as the pieces don’t seem to fit anywhere. I squeeze it down. Another row disappears.

I exhale, not noticing the orange L-block that falls onto the side. Beginning an impossible cascade of trying to align everything else. But the pieces don’t fill each other’s gaps, and tower of red, yellow, blue, green, purple, green, yellow, red, blue, red, blue and –

NEW HIGH SCORE: 6, 273.

I flip my father’s phone off, annoyed with my failure. But still bored waiting for him to finish with the mechanic, I turn to the next best feature: the camera.

I snap a photo of my feet hovering over the grey floor; proud of my captured landscapes, I look through the gallery of granulated photos. Our blooming sunflowers caught from below, or a cloud that half resembled a whale, or a picture of my sister on her scooter. Her dimples still shining through the grans of pixels on the tiny screen.

I push the right arrow further, passing the photos of melted metal and broken concrete my dad takes at work, and I land on a video. I press play in curiosity.

A white, blonde woman with plump breasts, wearing only a sheer white top and panties barely covering her. She winks at me and blows a kiss from her overfilled lips through the phone. She takes the top off with her pedicured hands, revealing her perky nipples.

She’s tanned to an orange hue, and curvy as she turns her back to me. The woman bends over and pulls the thin thong off, shaking her round butt close to my face. She walks forward as two men appear.

The men are fully naked, one with blonde hair, the other with brown. They both smile wide with white teeth and flex their biceps for me. They chuckle with their chiselled abs contracting each time. I get closer to find their muscles shaved smooth and their penises light pink.

It shines with oil in the bright lights. They pick up the busty blonde and carry her to a bed with white sheets. The blonde man sucks on her nipple as the brunette sucks the other breast. She moans loud and the men place their fingers in her vagina. She puts her hands on their stiff cocks Tossing garbage into the truck bed, my father begins to rant about when I’ll get a girlfriend.

“What about Becca?” my father makes an hourglass shape in the air, “She’s got a big butt.”

I roll my eyes, “Becca is my friend. I don’t look at her like that.”

“Pues qué? Tienes miedo de las chicas?”

“No, it’s ” I rummage through my arsenal of excuses, “I’m too young, papi.”

My father scoffs.

“Sabes, when I was your age - y no le digas a tu mama – I was kissing all the girls at school,” he looks into the distance, remembering them fondly, “Solo quiero que tengas lo mismo.”

“Well, I don’t want the same,” I throw another bag in.

But it splits apart, a concoction of rotten liquids seeps out with broken Corona bottles.

“Mierda!” my father’s face furrows.

I pick at the shards, holding my nose from the fumes. My father continues his rant.

“Well, you’ve got to learn some time,” he grins, “Y has visto videos?”

“No!” I exclaim with a crack

He laughs, “Mira mijo, it’s not correct but it is good to learn from them. I watch it, algunas veces.”

“Papi, no.”

"Samuel, cuándo te van a salir rayas en las pelotas?”

“Can you not?”

“Que?” he says annoyed.

“I don’t like it when you talk about my body, like that.”

My father slaps my crotch, mocking me. I back away from him.

“Tu eres mi hijo! I can talk about whatever I want.”

He attempts to hit my crotch again, but I slap his hand away. His face turns red.

“NO! Ay, yo soy tu papa!” he begins to shout, “You cannot hit me! Do you not have respect?”

He begins to take his belt off. I try to get words out, but he shushes me.

“I’m here trying to help you, Samuel. You can’t hit me for that. O quieres ser un maricon? he folds the belt in his hand.

His eyes are glazed red. He turns me around and pushes me down to my knees.

I arch my back.

He strikes and counts each whip.

Uno, bite my lip. Dos, focus on my hands. Tres, exhale with a whimper.

Once he was done, he pulls me into his arms. My red curls drip with sweat, but so does his wrinkled forehead. His light blue eyes looked me up and down with hands following their guidance. He smirks with stained teeth coming down to bite me. I giggle.

I burrow into his pit, licking the salt off his skin.

“God, you are so cute,” he brushes his hands through my hair.

“Only for you,” I swirl my tongue around his nipple.

He laughs at my lie, “So, what brings a fresh American boy to London?”

“University, I’m doing creative writing,” I slip my fingers into his hands.

“What are you going to do after?”

“I’m not sure Maybe journalism? I don’t know, but I want to always write poetry ”

He kisses my forehead, “Poetry? You’re so cute ”

I blush, “What do you do?”

“I’m in the Army, mostly tech work through. Not really in battle,” he rolls his eyes.

Fresh American Boy licks at British Army Man’s biceps.

“I mean, you’re pretty good with that weapon,” I grab his bulging crotch.

I run my tongue down his toned body.

Army-Man chuckles, “Yeah? You want it again, boy?”

I nod with his cock in my mouth.

“I feel bad taking your innocence,” Army-Man whispers in my ear.

He gips my ass with one hand. And smacks my face the with other.

American-Boy moans out, “Don’t feel bad, I’ve got nothing left.”

Army-Man slips his tongue inside my boy mouth, twisting them together. He slaps me and I can feel him poking at me. American-Boy giggles waiting for a second round of ammunition to begin.

A forced cough silences the wet smacking.

“Hi, Harry . When are you going to be done? Dinner’s ready, babe.”

Harry picks up my frail figured and lays me to the side.

“Okay, yeah. I’ll just go drop him off.”

Harry’s husband forces a smile, and nods. I jump out of their bed and wipe the lube, sweat and cum off me. But it sticks under my nails.

“It was really nice meeting you,” Harry says, getting clothed.

“Yeah, same,” I smirk.

He comes up to me and grabs my waist. He pulls me in and plants his final kiss on me, “God, I can’t believe you’re only 18.”

“Me neither.”

in the cradle

Will you dig up its grave and take it with you to the next house.

The poor bird that I never meant to kill.

Struck in the middle of chaos.

Take her in your heart as I have taken you.

Don’t forget the headstone too.

I beg all night for it to fly

At least so I could remove the seed that choked her in spite.

It did nothing to deserve the pain of its life.

Nothing I could do except give it the knife.

I’ll plead and beg for you to leave it alone.

But I’ll want you to stay.

Could you carry the corpse and place it in my cradle?

Sway it back. And forth.

Sway it all day.

An angel contorted by a tourniquet

There are dozens of me, with the same dry patches, skin that doesn’t when to stop producing skin, and a stomach that stays plump. There are dozens of me

My mother swings open the curtain to reveal her opinions on the black suit pants.

“Can’t you close the buttons?”

Ashamed, I shake my head no.

“Dios mio, Samuel, you need to lose weight!”

Unsure what she means, how do I lose the weight of my body? I thought this was my body.

"Okay,” I respond.

“De veras if these husky sizes don’t fit you… no sé. Estás muy gordo.”

My mother scoffs at me and whips the curtains back.

There are dozens of me. With rolls on my sides, pinched pimples and dried tears before my mother could hear my whimpers.

On the way out, she rants about papaya seeds that’ll make me lose weight. Or make her lose weight. Or the both of us. I nod, yes. Anything to make her not upset with my body.

Anything to make her not upset that my body forced us into the Boy’s Husky section.

Anything to make her not upset with the body, I didn’t realize was a problem.

On Sunday night, we were invited to a Brother’s house. They had just moved into a big house in the suburbs, bought with money that their disabled son won them. At least, that’s what my mother gossiped in the car. When we arrive, the house lights up a path to the door. My mother rolls her eyes.

They were still freshly moved in, with sofas still hard from the factory and unstained tables. It smelt like it had been painted only hours before, just for our visit.

My father went away to the garage with the Brother to drink and listen to songs about how women break their hearts. My sisters, Julia and Sara, went to play with the young daughter in her big room, with a dollhouse that Sara envied.

There was an older son, maybe twenty, I couldn’t tell. His body was defined with biceps, a broad shoulder, and abs you could see through his tight shirts. I caught stray looks of him and couldn’t mutter a word to him. I wanted to fuck him, but I wanted to be like him more.

Out of options, I sat next to my mother on the hard sofas in a dimly lit living room. She speaks with the Sister, a pretty, thin, Spanish woman, the whole night. The Sister keeps pushing a buggy, with her youngest son in it. His mouth stays open, with a slight smile. He drools down his face and she keeps wiping it off. His groans scare me; what is wrong with him?

The Sister tells my mother about how the hospital messed up, how the family sued, and how with all the money to were able to buy him a high-tech wheelchair. As well as a new build in the suburbs, a new car for their eldest, and a new car for themselves.

Oh! And the Gucci sunglasses she insists on wearing indoors.

The Sister tells my mother that her son went more than a minute without oxygen, which left him with severe brain damage and a begging jaw.

Was his mind trapped inside the body or the body trapped by the mind? I wasn’t sure, so my mother pushed me to say ‘Hello’ to him.

I step towards his buggy. One of his eyes looked to the left, and the other right behind me. He groans with a cough of light spit across my face.

“Hello,” I whisper.

“You can speak louder, Samuel,” my mother demands of my voice.

I nod, yes.

“Hello. Joshua.”

On the way home, my mother tries to entertain my father with all the gossip she’s created. But my father only grunts instead of words after a few drinks. My mother turns to me instead.

“Tu sabes, Samuel? You could’ve been like him.”

“Como Joshua?”

“Si, mijo. Tu naciste con un hoyo en el corazón. ”

“A hole?”

A hole that hadn’t closed before I was born, the air couldn’t get my heart beating. Instead, there was a single cry before I begin to choke My body’s original attempt at ending itself, but the doctors raced to intubate me. I went over a minute without oxygen. I could’ve been Joshua and I’m not sure why I’m not.

“Y Por Dios! You’ve been a healthy boy,” my mother squishes my cheeks.

I’m not sure if the heart ever healed.

With the close of the curtains, the room goes dark in the middle of the day. I just got back home from my last day at school. I waved goodbye to my best friends as I got off the yellow bus. It was hot out, but the air conditioning blasted my room shivering cold.

I prop my pillows up and lay my plushies out onto the sides. I tuck the envelopes beneath them.

My mother calls me on FaceTime. I pick up. She’s just getting off work now.

“Samuel! Samuel are you home?” she says out of breath.

“Yes.”

“Okay, good, good. Papi is on the way, okay.”

“Okay.”

“Estas bien, mi amor?” her eyes swell.

“Si.”

“Okay… you know what? We should get ice cream later! Quieres?” she smiles wide with red eyes.

I hold back a screech in my throat.

“Yeah, okay ”

She sighs, with a faint grin.

“Te amo, Samuel.”

“Te amo, Mami.”

She hangs up.

I go into my underwear drawer and pull out the pack of blades I stole from the garage. I spill them out on my desk and pick one I haven’t used.

One still sharp, with no metal missing from my thighs.

I get into bed, prop my head up and look over at my teddy.

A smile:

only beginning yet fading before the dimples had a moment to shine.

My mother calls me on FaceTime. I pick up.

Her skin is dry with dark sun patches forming round her eyes.

“Hola, hijo! Como estas?”

“Sin energia, I’ve been battling another migraine.”

She chuckles weakly, “Ay, mijo, you got that from me, didn’t you?”

I give her a grin, “Asi se mira. ”

Her eye bags are deep hollows, yet she stares at mine first. “Samuel, you look so skinny are you anemic?”

“I’m not anemic, mama. Estoy cansado!”

“Estas comiendo bien?”

I smirk, “Yeah, I try to eat my three meals a day.”

“Me preocupas, Samuel. You look so skinny and tired,” she scans my face, “You need to come back to the Congregation.”

I scoff at her, “I’m skinny and tired because I work. Why are you bringing this up again?”

“Ya casi no te reconozco! You’ve got dyed hair and earrings. It’s not right, Samuel.”

“No. No. What’s not right is hurting your child,” I hold back a screech in my throat.

“I pray for you, mijo. ”

“I’m not doing this tonight, Marcela. Buenas noches. ” I hang up.

The drive back home isn’t silent. My father keeps the radio off and spews on how inconsiderate I am to attempt suicide. I stare outside the window, wondering if I could just, open the door? How mangled would my body end up? How inconsiderate would that be?

My father smacks me to face him.

“You have to apologize to your mother,” he demands, “You’ve made her feel like she’s disappointed you! When you’re the one going around telling people you’re gay!”

I open my jaw to speak but my father shakes his head.

“No sabes nada! Eres un niño! We’ll get you a meeting with the Elders and… and we’ll look at conversion therapy.”

I nod, yes.

The night was still warm with a gentle buzzing of the light post overhead. My father unlocks the door and lets me in.

Julia and Sara come up to me first, giving me a hug and showing me a K-Pop video, they’ve become obsessed with. I don’t particularly like it, but they sit me down and force me to watch it, and I had no complaints. They didn’t ask about the hospital band on my wrist, or the wrap around my arm.

My mother walks into the living room. Puffy eyed and shaking in a cold sweat. I stand up to speak with her, but she ignores me, walking back to her room.

I knock on her door. She doesn’t answer. I knock again, a dog pawing to be let in. She doesn’t answer. I let myself in to find her wrapped in a blanket, with the opened envelopes at her feet.

“Mami, I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I blurt out.

She doesn’t respond, only letting out tears and snot

I sob at her feet, “Mama! Perdóname! Por favor!”

She doesn’t respond, her sobbing only growing violent. Her face furrowed into itself.

On my knees, I wrap her swollen knuckles around mine, begging her to hold my hands.

My tears stain her blanket, and I cry out, “I’m sorry! I couldn’t handle it anymore, Mami! I couldn’t live anymore.”

She brushes her fingers through my hair. But she pulls away to sob into her palms. My father walks in and I leave the room. The door shuts and I can hear her screams behind me.

It would take three days for her to speak to me again.

roadkill

Perseverance of preserving our love, stashed away in my glove compartment.

A body stained with its own remarks.

Bruised by its own mistakes.

The beauty can only starve for so long.

No amount of embalming can keep us together.

After two weeks, it’s melting in the sun, eyes gone grey from the green you so loved.

Here I am drunk, stuffing it with words I should’ve said.

Necromancy at its finest.

But my poetry just isn’t the spell!

Cannot have what is not Cannot want what is spoiled.

Just reminiscing on the sweet tooth that caved into a root canal.

If my spells never work, what is the path forward?

Perhaps this is what it is

But pain still beats when you’ve gone under.

Hawks at the neck of a sheep

It’s 7:30 in the morning. I should be leaving to catch the bus now. I knock on my mother’s door, tell her goodbye and kiss her forehead. She’s stayed home today, wrapped up in bed with a cough

“Portarte bien, mijo. Te amo, ” she whispers out, her eyes barely open.

I nod and head to the front door. I open it, stomp my feet twice, and shut the door loudly. The clock ticks. I hold my breath and creep towards the basement door. Conscious of the loud hinges, I softly open it wide enough to let me through. It slowly falls back behind, and I slide down the stairs, on my butt.

A step creaks

I freeze, looking back onto the door. There’s no movement underneath the door, so I continue my way down and make landing on the old carpet.

My friend, Raymond, texts me: ‘we’re on our way!’

I reply back: ‘yay! okay cool, park up a bit away from mines.’

It’s 7:45 now, and classes start at 8. I only live ten minutes away from school, and Raymond only lives five minutes from me. But the ten-minute drive was better with Raymond.

He texts me: ‘we’re here!’

I unlatch the basement door and slide out. Less afraid and brazened by the easily hatched plan, I think to myself… this isn’t too bad. The beginning of Spring’s warmth coddles my anxiety and highlights Raymond’s bright blue SUV in a blinding light. Raymond waves to me through the window, I wave back. I quicken my pace up the driveway, bright with a smile, my heavy backpack cannot weigh me down.

As I enter, Raymond blasts music to welcome me for my first joyride!

“Ahh! We’ve done it!” he laughs cockily.

Raymond begins to drive away as I look back to my house.

My mother… She’s pulled the curtain from her window and is sticking her sickly face out.

She texts me: ‘Que haces?’

I download Grindr out of boredom. Raymond says he’s met someone there, though the man is quite older than us. But since he just turned 18, it’s not an issue. I haven’t yet though, still a year to go but I decide an early stakeout of the local options could be good.

The app is dark with headless torsos, old men’s faces, smooth backs and tight briefs. I don’t set up a profile, just another anonymous homosexual lurking on the app. After being home schooled for a year, I miss the social interaction with ‘worldly’ people and perhaps Grindr could give a semblance of that.

But it doesn’t. Just men messaging me to have sex in the woods and my hormones aren’t that desperate yet.

Julia comes up to me asking for help on an assignment. She’s taking math courses that I never took, way head of the Algebra and something more of mathematical theory.

I roll my eyes at her, “I don’t know about all that.”

She groans, frustrated, “Please! I don’t get it.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t be in the class.”

“Sam, you’re no help,” she stomps her feet and hits her head.

I tell her to calm down, but she can’t.

“Okay, I’ll help you. I’ll help you, come here.”

With no knowledge, I hand my expertise in Google. I pull up her question and scroll through the explanation with her.

A notification appears.

‘Grindr: AnonTop has sent you a message!’

I swipe it away. I continue with the explanation, but Julia’s face goes stern

“I’ll go look it up,” she walks back to her room.

After a while, I go to her room and try to speak to her, but she ignores me with hums and ohs. She knows. Our mother will be home soon, and I can’t have her saying anything. I’m already on thin ice being home schooled and avoiding conversion camp requests. I can’t let them know.

I plead with her to have a conversation with me, but she ignores me. Frustrated as the minutes tick away, I begin to cry for her. She snaps at me.

“I know what the app is for!”

I improvise through tears, “No, no. It was a joke!”

She tilts her head, confused. I explain the joke was downloading it to take funny screenshots of what the men say. Luckily, I had sent Raymond some of these screenshots earlier and I showed her as ‘proof’. She begins to cry

“That’s not a joke! It’s dangerous!”

Continuing to improvise and plead, I tell her it was a bad choice but not one I was going to actively use. Her stream becomes a sob in my shoulder.

“I’m just scared for you, Sam.”

She looks up at me, puffy eyed with snot on her lip. She’s scared I’m getting away from God’s loving grip. She’s scared that I’ll end up hurt and alone, like my parents say I will. I sigh and squeeze her in my chest.

“Julia, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I will get better, I promise. But you need to give me the chance.”

“You promise, Sam?” she sniffles out.

“I promise.”

The phone rings, startling the French class’s silence during the exam. Mr. Hayde is conducting our mid-term comprehension assessments and I’m sat in the corner sharing answers with my friend, Georgia.

Mr. Hayde picks up the call, nods, and puts it down. He walks towards us two in the back, and we quickly put our hears down to the paper.

“Samuel, you’re being picked up early. Lucky day,” he chuckles.

Everyone turns to me, glaring faces of envy as I pack up. I whisper good luck to Georgia. She winks back.

At the office, my father stands in his yellow hi-ves vest and hardhat, covered in ash and dust. His brows furrow when he looks at me.

My heart sinks.

“Let’s go, Samuel,” he grips my shoulder as we walk out.

I almost want to yell out for the office to send me back! I need to finish my exam! But my lips stay sealed with a sweat on my forehead.

Once we’re out the door, my father smacks me in the head. He asks me to explain what I was thinking but won’t let me have a word in. I try to explain that I’d miss the bus and my friend

picked me up, simple as that. But he had already created a reason, citing that my friend was a ‘man who could drive’ and ‘God knows what he does to me’.

“And you think it’s okay to lie, Samuel? No te he enseñado?” he shouts in the car.

My father lifts up the back of my shirt and bends me down toward the glove box. He belts me in the parking lot of the school, and I stare down onto the muddy brown carpet. The drops of tears soak it back to black.

My mother knocks at my door, “Broadcast is ready!”

I sigh, annoyed.

Every month, the organization released a ‘Broadcast’, an hour-long special filled with short sermons, interviews with Witnesses, music videos and Bethel updates. I dread that hour of my life wasted.

I drag myself to the sofa and sit down phone in hand. As a subtle act of rebellion, I choose to ignore these broadcasts by being on my phone. My parents could make me sit there, but they couldn’t control my attention.

My mother pipes up and asks me to watch the video. I ignore her. My father attempted to put me in line and shouts at me to get off. I whip my phone screen to show them my ‘notes’ I’ve taken He scoffs at my lie.

They begin to mutter things that I, didn’t pay attention to. But then a sob begins, loudly. Julia breaks down into her knees. My parents ask her what’s wrong, but her words become a stutter.

I realize then what’s happened.

I head to the bathroom to text Raymond about the upcoming situation: ‘shit is going down, if I go MIA, I might be on my way…’

A bang at the door. My father shouts at me to come out. He shakes the door handle. I take a deep breath and unlock it. He slams the door open, pushing me down onto the floor. He picks me up by the shoulder and drags me into the living room.

I stand in front of the four of them, dazed by the quick turnaround of events. My father demands my phone.

“It’s mine, I paid for it,” I state.

He snatches it from my hand and forced me to open it up. He scrolls through to find the app gone, but unsatisfied he goes through my messages.

My father gasps, and looks me up and down, “You’re a faggot?”

He shows me my conversation with Raymond.

“He’s my friend,” I grab at my phone he smacks my arm. “Si, eso veo. Y el es un maricon tambien?”

“Papi… ” I begin.

“Don’t call me that.”

My father throws my phone at my feet. I can feel the streams being held back by a stint I placed earlier. He tells me if I want to be gay, I’ll have to do out of his house. I plead with him that he’s overreacting.

“No, Samuel. If you want to get molested by men, go ahead! But not under my roof!”

My father begins to take his belt off.

“If you hit me, I’ll call the police,” I blurt out.

His eyes widen, “Do it. DO IT! I will belt you while you call them, I will discipline you in front of them.”

My mother begs him to calm down. Tears blur his figure into a dark mass, screaming

endlessly down my throat. Red glares right through me. I speed away to my room, grabbing my phone, but he follows behind me. He pins me against the wall, letting go off me after my mother shakes him.

“I will beat you to a pulp, Samuel! I’m not letting you be some faggot! Me escuchas?” I run into my room, slamming the door before he follows in. I lock it and he bangs at the door.

I sob into my arms, alone with a man waiting to beat me on the other side. I message my friend Jack. We met on Instagram a few weeks ago, and he comforts me after each horrible day in my life. He lives all the way in London, but it feels like he’s always nearby on my phone.

I message him, shaking with tears hindering the screen. I tell him about the beating ogre at my door, the redundant mother and the religion that’s laid a noose on me, He responds back: ‘You need to leave.’