Soar

One

Hey, I'm Finley, yep a boys name couldn't sound gayer. I'm 14 years old and I attend Parkersburg school for boys. Every single day I end up being bullied and harassed because of one difference that I have from the other boys...

My sexuality.

Walking down the hallways at school, I hear a ton of rude homophobic comments. A common phrase coming from most of the boys at our school is "dude that's so gay" Or "youre gay". No these are not talking about homosexuals or anything having to do with the LGBT community, these are used as an insult. However this is wrong. You see we have a great number of queer kids in our school who are not out of the closet yet. Or at least I hope so.

I walk down the hall clenching my books against my chest fearing that someone will knock them out of my hands -that's happened far too many times- I try my hardest to block them out but I cannot avoid the slurs, "fag" is what I'm called most of the time. The only reason anybody knows about my sexuality is that when I finally had the guts to ask my crush to the dance, I thought he might possibly be gay, maybe bi. Well that was a huge mistake. He immediately rejected me with a "no way in hell! I'm not going to the dance with a fag! Everyone will think I'm a fag too!" That's when he started the rumors. "He brought me to the bathroom, pinned me up against the wall and forced me to kiss him!" "He raped me in the bathroom stall!" I have no idea how anyone believed this crap, I'm much too skinny to pin him down and I most certainly do not desire sex, I'm very much asexual and do not believe sex is the only way to happiness in your relationship. Nuh uh no sex for me. Now everyone in the entire school hates me. And I do not have the strength to tell a teacher for I fear that they will contact my parents who are majorly homophobic. They would kill me if they had the chance and that would probably take no skill to do. I was all skin and bones, neglectful parents means little to no food. I didn't really care at this point. I was used to it. The occasional snacks that the cafeteria sells that everyone thinks are disgusting are my main source of nutrition. I wait for everyone to leave the cafeteria before I grab them out of the garbage can.

School was over for the day. I walked the 8 miles home today not wanting to be harassed anymore than I already had during school. When I got home I flopped down on my bed trying to get the ringing of the slurs out of my head. I knew it was wrong but I thought that the only way to get the pain of words out was to have other pain. I grabbed the razor from my desk drawer, hesitant but I still grabbed it. I put it to my wrist. At this point I was crying silent tears. I sliced, slowly but swiftly letting my mind absorb the pain. I watched as the red blood flowed down my wrist, rolling over my previous scars and dripping onto the carpeted floor. I looked at my calendar, seeing all of the days I had counted since I last cut, twelve, only twelve days clean.

My mother was out on her usual 3 or 4 day leave, probably prostituting and using that money to buy drugs. She had done this since my father had abandoned us when I was three. My mother has had a boyfriend for quite a while, long enough that I call him my father. I don't even know if he knows what she does when she leaves. He doesn't care for me ever. The only times I really see him is when he comes over for sex with my mother, and I leave them to do their business.