The Boy And The Broken Heart
He hoped he wouldn’t grow up. Adults were hopeless. He didn’t actually want to remain a child, but he didn’t want to forget where excitement, joy, and dreams came from. Most importantly hope. Adults changed when they grew up. The smart ones became stupid. He watched those, deep in love beat it out of each other, then wonder where it went.
“Why did adults follow rules they hated?” “Why did they create rules to be hated?” “Why did they expect you to follow them down the road of misery” A road they knew was fake, but covered with sweet thick sticky lies to pave it. Lies they perfected, convinced others to believe” Such Wasted talent.
He watched clouds of ideas and dreams, blown away by tongues spitting negativity. Heavy and sharp. Never sudden enough to be surprised, but their reactions always were. He watched them run for cover, leave responsibility behind and find happiness in the freedom of irresponsibility “That must have been what happened to my father”, he thought.
He wanted to feel that freedom. He wanted his mother to feel the freedom too. “A momma’s boy”, he watched her make “Holy water” with his father, who, during the rare, occasional visits, made her scream for god before emerging from their room, pale as the false white Christ, black religions despised, but also praised, whenever they mis-behaved. Adults may think kids don’t listen, but, they always follow rules, if beneficial.
He diluted bleach, knowing it was used to clean. He injected himself and felt a definite cleansing spirit. “AAhhh” “Yeeesssshhhhh.” He heard his brain talking. It wanted to be cracked. “Go ahead, seee what you’re made of” He laughed, hearing “No pun intended-or was it? this is it” he thought. He felt happy from freedom, but sad from power.
He would never have to feel responsible again. He would never have to worry about growing up and have adulthood ruin his life. He would not be the adult who knew how to fix everyone’s problems except his own. He thought “I accomplished what they couldn’t. I taught myself what they couldn’t teach me.”
He was unstuck, from his ignorant, broken mind. He was like the white kids, who went to therapy to cope with their parents divorce. Shown how to help themselves deal with the responsibility of adult irresponsibility. “Pain is the greatest educator, and causes the most pleasure.” He thought about the pounding he gave his girlfriend, who said “his dick game was really really good.” He thought about the beating his mother took from his father, and the similarity between their pleasureful yelling sounds of pain. He thought of his girlfriend and mother always wanting, even needing more. He threw up, then injected himself again.
“Why were adults so desperate to be desired?” “Aahhhh” “whaaaaat isshhh, happening to meeeeee?” He stumbled to the window. “Adults were tooo desperate.” he thought again. “I won’t have to make myself beautiful. “Young men portray confidence, but they are terrified.” Growing up meant growing old, and fat, and UN-attractive, and worst of all, less sexual, which is a main reason to grow up, along with being rich-at-least for young men whose idols lived in a dream land where sex, sexy women, and money came as constant as breath.” All part of the American dream, the adults he knew were not allowed to have. Growing up meant failure.
“If it’s my life, why can’t I live it how I want? Why can’t I die when I want? Why is it dominated by rules I don’t make or care about? I don’t wanna be seeing, smelling, stepping in, and dealing with ass-holes. Why am I the ass-hole if I tell an ass-hole to stop being, and doing ass-hole things, more times than teenager masturbates or shits in a day? Then be labeled, for kicking one, because they wouldn’t stop, even after I asked, and told them politely to stop. Why does every generation find a new way to be and create ass-holes?-Bullies, abusive adults, racists?”
“Why do adults grow to become what they don’t like? They are young enough, and strong enough to outrun everything they dislike about their life. They certainly have the time to figure it out. It takes a-long time to grow old.”
He wiped the drool from his mouth. “Why are they only good when it benefits them? Why is that even a problem? Shouldn’t it always be accepted, and a priority to act and live in a way that benefits? Isn’t life’s desire to be happy? Is it really being selfish, if it makes you happy?”
He smacked himself in the head.“Growing up won’t break my spirit. Kids die young just from the idea.” He whispered. “Shhhhh.” He saw his shadow staring at him through the night shaded window. He chased it. speeding, jumping, reaching for control. He broke through it’s sharpness. He tried to grab and hold on, “Slippery as oily wind” He thought.
“The birds eye view. I’m finally flying away.” He cried tears of joy. The clouds came and went away. Rain pushed him along. He hit the ground and his blood rinsed away. He became a mural. Eye catching flowers covered what was destroyed, dreams and what went with them. The boy with a broken heart, who spilled his love.
Anthony Markland
