Work Text:
To my father’s ‘friend’,
You may not remember me. For I am a speck of sand within your hourglass and a loose sheet of paper folded and forgotten in my father's blazer pocket. I am the irrelevant entity that is swept up in the protagonist's story.
The protagonist of said story is my father, Hawkins Fuller, whom you know intimately. Yet do you know the harrowing cry of said man discovering his son, to be a reflection of his truth? Burning ice eyes that glare into your soul as you tremble off the floor. Concealed behind the flames you are unsure if it is disappointment or the fear that comes with facing who you are.
Perhaps you are more familiar than I expected. When I found a random man in the cabin who turned out to be my real mother, I was a confused boy. Three years later I am none the wiser. You meant You mean everything to my father, your gravitational pull having the ability to pull me into my father’s orbit after being swept out into the galaxy throughout my childhood. You are his moon and stars, his God he prays to each night, the lingering thought on his mind. You are the smell that prevails despite how hard my mother tries to rid him of you.
Ever since reaching adolescence, I have felt abnormal, that there is something wrong with the way I act, think and perceive the world. I am lost at sea between my parent's expectations and my truth. I write to you as to dock at your port, in hopes of knowledge to guide me on this journey. You called me sensitive, not with one ounce of the derogatory tone that boys with starched denim and baseball shirts drawl on. No sneers with clenched fists and furrowed brows, just pure light reflecting a spectrum of colourful emissions in those caring eyes.
You are abnormal too. Father is abnormal as well. You were abnormal together. Perhaps in another universe, we were abnormal altogether. But that is not my reality, neither is it yours. As much as we may hope he could change, he at the end of the day must allow it, just as he expects us to allow him everything.
Did jail truly let you forget him or is he a bad taste still lingering in your mouth? Maybe even a good taste. You and my mother are one and the same, sharing the same man, waiting for said man to come home to them. Does the right side of your bed ever go cold, sheets untucked, waiting for he who won’t appear?
Is your Hawk any more truthful than mine? Does the truth of his sexuality feel warmer than that of his family he abandons for long work hours and mandatory work trips? My father has left for the week, so I am right in assuming he is with you. Do not read this letter to him. Do not read this letter to anyone but yourself. If he cannot live his truths he doesn’t deserve mine.
This little life that I try to make the most of demonises me in the face of conformity. The sweet aroma of smoke has become the anchor weighing me down, the cool waters embrace wrapping around me as my cries are silenced. I lay mute at the bottom of a trench, darkness engulfing me as my light is dragged away by a fishing net, reduced to a struggling ball of limbs.
Why must the sweetest kiss come from the cursed lips of the same sex? Black curls would fall onto my face as I’d lean up to meet his embrace under a street light in a dirty back alley. This ocean is what I tint my memories with. Blurring red and blue lights behind a screaming siren echoing through the starry winter sky instead is a songbird singing a sweet tune. Rough men gripping tightly upon his shoulders as his hands reach out to my retreating back reverse into myself running into his arms.
Boys like myself roam the streets selling whatever they can get their hands on for their next hit. One more gram, one more time will finally bury those thoughts for good. Make your father proud, my mind lectures. It has become clear to me that nothing I achieve will please him. Maybe something you do will.
My time on this earth has been short. I can feel my mind sinking further into the abyss, this time I don’t think I can swim up to the surface. My limbs weigh heavy as stone and my eyelids now have a droopy slant. A deathly chill is approaching me now as my blood runs cold. Pale skin now porcelain.
I hope he gives you the warmth you deserve.
-Jackson