Pinocchio

I Have No Sons

The blades were cold on his skin in his hand, cut hair sitting gently like feathers at his feet. He stepped outside the door as a different person in the world, trying his best to keep his footsteps as quiet as possible.

"What the hell did you do to your hair?!"

Too late.

"Mom...." he whispered quietly. He was almost too scared to speak, barely moving his lips.

"What are you doing to yourself?! You are not a boy!"

The words were like knives. They pierced through his heart, burning his insides with poison. Out of all the people he hoped would support him the most, his mother was at the top of his list.

"Mom, please just...just accept this. This is who I am."

"NO," she grabbed his arm, nudging him back into his room. "I HAVE NO SONS."

This, this right here is what he feared: the feeling of her pushing every ounce of support away with him into that dull bedroom with the last evidence of what could have been a daughter. The feeling of abandonment was terror to his bones. 

She had given up on him.

"Get out of my house!" He heard her yell through the thin walls. "I don't want to see your face ever again!"

Warm tears of anger and sadness filled his eyes as he threw random clothes into a black backpack that had sat disorderly in the corner of his room, not used for months. He feared passing his mother in the hall to the door, so he opened the window and jumped outside, slowly closing the chipped white rim until it squeaked shut. Inside his room, he left a final message - a page torn out of a book, which was barely taped to the door as if he had not wished to peel off the paint.

Sadly, his door would not be opened for months, and his message would be delayed.