A year ago, I would havesaid I was a writer. I spent my days locked in my room, armed withpens and paper, selling my soul to the English language with thepromise that, one day, something I wrote would make people think.Some of the things I wrote were sad, and brought tears to my eyes asI committed them to paper. Some were fantasy tales of kings andqueens, or knights and dragons, of legends and lore. Some wereextremely personal, my private anger management. In the same way thatmy peers wrote diary entries, I wrote poetry, setting my feelingsfree in aggressive verses of love, loss, and teenage angst. Theserhymes were composed of cussing and insults – things a "goodboy" like me would never dare to say out loud. They weren'tworks of art, they weren't well written in the slightest, theyweren't meant to be seen by any eyes other than my own. Perhaps ifthings had turned out how they were meant to, I would still bewriting.
At the time, I lived withmy grandparents. They were not exactly the most supportive guardianspossible, and the only reason I hadn't killed myself yet was becausemy aunt had offered to take me to America in the summer to visit herfamily. I was so excited, I didn't even mind my grandmother'sinsistence on packing for me. I didn't think I'd need my book ofpoetry in America – land of the free and all. I knew I would behappy there. Imagine that! Six whole weeks of happiness! To me, thethought of it was better than nectar and ambrosia. So I left the bookbehind, taking great care to hide it under layers of what mygrandmother called "junk" - assorted Christmas presentsfrom my dad. "Please Do Not Read" was written in boldcapitals on the front cover, and I was naively confident that, foronce, my privacy would be respected.
My grandmother read themwhile I was in America. Consulted my psychiatrist about my poetrywhile I was a thousand miles away, and didn't even think to ask myconsent first. She ripped open my heart for all to see, and stillrefused to take my feelings seriously. I think it's that which hurtsthe most, almost a year later. I have never written anything truerthan what she read, and still nothing changed. She still didn't seeme as anyone other than the lively, quirky, intelligent child she hadraised. I despised her for it.
I don't understand why shefelt the need to betray my trust in such a clear way. That littlejotter of verses was hidden well, and could not have been discoveredby accident. My grandmother was looking for something, and wentagainst my firmly stated wishes to find and exploit it.
When I was younger, Iwould cry when she read what I had written. No matter what it was –homework, short stories, fan fiction – I threw a tantrum until itwas prised from my reluctant hands. Once they were read, my storieswere never criticised the way I needed them to be. I felt uselessbecause all that mattered to my grandmother was spelling,punctuation, and grammar. I went to school to learn these things, andwas always ahead of my peer group, yet I never received any advice onhow to tell stories, how to construct words into somethinginteresting. I wanted to be praised for my imagination, and I cravedthat praise even more as I grew older. Right up to the day she readmy poetry, my grandmother refused to comment on the subjects of mystories, except to tell me what was and wasn't suitable for children.Why did she decide to break her silence the one time I wanted it? Theone time I needed it?
Perhaps it was because thepoems confirmed that I am not, in fact, "normal". Theydescribed the anger I felt at myself, concerning my religion, myfuture, and my sexuality. My grandparents had been able to dismiss itas teenage rebellion before, but I think the poetry confirmed that Iwas telling the truth. Even then, my grandmother managed to ignorehow I felt. She confronted me with the jotter when I got home,convinced that I had written it for the sole purpose of annoying her.
To this day, I have notwritten again. I've tried, but the words all come out wrong. Eventhese words don't read the way I need them to, and they've taken meweeks to arrange properly. My sentences are the staccato bullets of amachine gun, my words are knives to the hearts of readers. Puttingpencil to paper hurts me, when once it was the key to the locked cageof freedom. By rifling through the pages of my thoughts, mygrandmother – who still insists she loves me – killed the writerI used to be. His heart broke in two when his secrets were spread tothe world, and now he lies in pieces, far behind the windows of mysoul. I want more than anything to fix him, to fix myself, butwhenever I try the already shattered fragments of his existence turnto dust and scatter further. I want only to have that part of myselfback, and perhaps, someday, it will return. But until then, I amlost. And I don't know how to be found.
