Gay Angels

Blurry against the backdrop of a wall he once painted for me, I can see the face of the first boy I ever loved. And I hear him screaming at me more than once in the middle of a nightmare: "I HATE your face when you look at me that way!"
And I roll over, looking curiously into the darkness for him, reaching for him, and seeing only the face of a stranger beside me. It is only the rain-the warm summer rain-speaking in the rhythm of him and bringing him home again.
Inured to this repetition of the past each night, I shudder and cry silently for the lost boy, the wild boy and the pumpkin-haired boy. I cry for our youth and the parts of us each that died that night.