I'll Say Something Next Time

Author’s Note: This piece contains themes of emotional and spiritual abuse, religious trauma, homophobia, and references to self-harm and death (metaphorical)

I would give anything to be like him. Loud. Radiant. Unapologetic. Free.

I wasn’t.

He was a hurricane. And at best… I was a pitiful gust of wind barely stirring up dust in this godforsaken town. He always said what he needed. And always meant what he said. Instead, I danced around the bush as my… charming mother would say.

It’s not that I didn’t want to…. But… I couldn’t. I was scared. But He wasn’t. That is what drew me to Him. And Him to me.

I wish my soul didn’t desire to be tethered to him. I’m too scared of the reality of it. I’m too scared to not be loved.

I’m too scared of The Fire.

I wish I wasn’t scared… but I was.

I wish I wasn’t silent… but I was.

I suppose all things happen for a reason… so that is why it took me so long to grow some balls as He would joke to me as we laid under the stars hearing the cacophony of sounds of the dark obsidian night.

The hum of the lightning bugs and the sting of the mosquitos. The cry of an owl in the dead of night calling for who knows what and who knows why.

He always compared me to them. Out of site… watching… listening… always there. I used to hate it. But now I understand why. I used to compare him to a blue jay… the ones that had the brightest blue on their wings… the ones that shrilled loudly… announcing its presence to anyone who didn’t care.

He laughed. He always does. Unapologetic… as if what we were doing was okay. As if we both would be in dire trouble if the wrong person spotted us out here.

He didn’t care.

I wish I didn’t. But I always felt the stares. They were never directed at me. But I could feel them. I could sense how it would be. I always heard what was said.

Fire. Burn. Death.

I always heard My Mother in my ear. It was wrong. An Abomination.

Sin.

Those dinner nights with my family. I hear what they all have to say. I stay silent. I know I could stop it. I really could. But I don’t.

And I tell myself next time I’ll be louder than the room.

I tell myself… I will tear my voice from my ribs and let if fly with the wings I gave it the first day I saw Him. The first day I buried it. I would shed my mortal skin and spread with the wings of light… I would rip away the constellations on my skin and become one myself. I would fall into the abyss and be what I was made to be.

I would fly.

Next time always arrives… it always does. I wish it doesn’t. I wish those words never rise from my mother’s black heart. I wish the black stream of hate never spilled from my father’s lips. I wish the painful daggers never left my uncle’s mouth. Scathing me like boiling hot water.

But they never knew. And I never try to break it to them.

So next time always comes. And I tell myself.

Next time I will fly.

Next time I will yell.

Next time is the time for the truth.

I lie. Every time next time arises… I say… next time. And I sit silent. Gripping their hateful speech to my heart with a force that is strange to me.

Next time.

And then Next Time… I am a ghost of my words. Haunting the space between me… and the truth. I say Next Time repeatedly. I never say This Time.

Next Time always becomes Next Time. And Next Time Again.

Every time… I pray for my courage to take a mind of its own and claw through my ribs and yell uninvited. I pray for it… it never erupts.

It Boils. It Seethes. It Thrashes in its cage that I built for it. But It never … ever leaves. I tell myself tomorrow. But tomorrow has a way of slipping through the cracks of a clenched fist and a crying heart.

I want to tell them everything… I want to run to the roof tops of heaven and scream. You Are Welcome Here… I am welcome here…

We Are Welcome Here.

But I never do. In the pews I sit… pray like my grandmother taught me. For love. For peace. For home.

For Unity.

I want to drop my hands and bellow Our father beckons us to come to him… as We are.

I never do.

Maybe Next Sunday.

Or the Sunday after that. Or after that…

Or… never.

I will one day.

Faith is steady… people are never.

People lie and pervert the true Melody…

It leads to scars on Flesh. And scars on Mind.

It leads to broken bones and hanged hopes.

One day… my broken and fragile soul will flock to the heavens… despite what my mother says about people like me. Despite the stripes I was given.

Despite Me.

What is one to do when Love seems to come from both sides… but only one allows you to be who you are?

What is one to do… when your home for so many years turn away from you … over one Love.

That is what I am scared of.

That is why… I will sit in silence during the pain of dinner. During the hateful river of words. I will always open to fight back…. But I never attempt to land a blow. Never break the status quo.

The is why I am an owl. And He is the brightest blue jay.

That is why I am a breeze. And He is the storm.

That is why He is under the stars and written in the margins of my Bible. And that is why She is next to me. That is why She is hiding too.

I wish I was brave.

I wish I was strong.

I wish I wasn’t scared.

But I am.

I am almost. I am maybe. He is real. He is certain.

He is the voice in my head that causes me to lie awake in the middle of the night… shaking at His sweet words. The pictures in my head Imagining something more. More than quiet glances. More than silent smiles. More than midnight rendezvous.

I wanted more.

I wasn’t ready.

I was too scared to ask for more. I was too scared to tell Them the He and I were more.

I was too scared of the pastor’s wife staring.

I shouldn’t have been.

I should have been soaring. Climbing. I should have marched to heavens gates… and demanded Us a home. Like it is written.

But for Us. Full of color. Full of scars. Full of hidden truths and scared lies.

For Us.

For True Love.

For Missing Pieces

For Crying Hearts

For Shattered Minds

For All of us.

But I never tried.

I barely whispered. I should have yelled.

But…Maybe I didn’t have too.

I should though.

Days pass like minutes. Next Times roll by every second. Silence stays.

But one day… one day… Next Time will be This Time.

One Day… He will be Mine. And I will yell it to the rooftops uncaring and unapologetically. I will Fly.

One of these days.

But then… Why Not Today? She had said to me. She had seen my walls… the very same ones She had built… until She found Her. Then… She grew.

She asked me. Why Not Today? She yelled for me in her own way of love.

“The courage isn’t coming. Drag it out of your ribcage, idiot. It doesn’t suit you to hide in there.”

Drag it out of your ribcage… Why Not Today. I need to. She helped me see it.

Way back then… I was terrified of what I had buried… of what I had kindled. Of what I had hid. I had the scars to prove it. I had the remarks of hatred wrapped in my head… suffocating it. Suffocating Me.

Why Not Today. The courage isn’t coming. Drag it out of your ribcage. It doesn’t suit you to hide in there. Why Not Today.

Not Next Time. But This Time.

I had found my wings at those simple words. Why Not Today.

I reached deep in my ribcage… past the terrified preservation of self. Past the blood that boiled and bubbled at what it knew I was trying to do. Past the Lies of what My Mother had said. Past the Hate of My Father. Past the Pain from My Uncle. I dug deeper than I ever had. The scars fluttered… the cracks healed. My Heart… whole.

I was louder than the room. I was. I truly was…

And I still Am.

I still fly… but now…

I know this hidden secret that the liars try to cover with false hymns.

There is a home for Us.

We Are Welcome.