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GAY FATHER’S LAMENT
That Was Then
And this is now
That was then, and this is now. The man I was, I would not recognize today. I can’t go back and fix him in the past.
I see the pain I caused. I see my sins and list them slowly in my mind.
I can’t explain the man I was. His actions then were born of reasons that elude me, caused by pain and forged on anvils of abuse and poverty.
Adulthood thundered early into my little boy's mind. No blueprint or guidebook told me how to navigate my way.
The will of others forged my silence. Hospitalized because of that abuse… no one explained or asked me questions.
That fog from abuse never left. The confusion, anger, and distrust battered my small pure soul.
Blindly I fought my way to adulthood. I built pathways split in two, on opposite sides of an opaque wall shielding one life path from the other.
No parent noticed. No one cared so I cared for myself and wrote life’s playbook poorly and struggled to make two pathways work.
Conforming to the expected hurt others. I put on a costume of life and lived within the walls of someone else’s plans each day.
