It has been two years today

Since I have had a fight with my then girlfriend

And, crying bitterly, I entered the living room

Replied to my father’s concerns

And let him know his daughter was dating a girl.

No wonder he hasn’t spoken to me since.

 

But, this poem isn’t about me

And nor is it about a cousin sister of mine

Whose phone was found in the living room

Full with smuts and gay stories

And who was publicly disgraced by my father,

The smuts, gays and trans called

Disgusting, shameful “things”

Present in the society.

 

No.

It is about something more.

It is about a song I wrote

About me and you and us

But it doesn’t really rhyme

So,

Let’s talk instead

About the past.

About before.

 

Six years ago, the day before yesterday

Watching Titanic with the family in the living room

My father claimed that

Jack was what he called ‘girlish’

And that Hockley was more

Of a “manly-man”.

 

Three years ago yesterday

My elder brother stumbled into the living room drunk

Telling everyone he had something to say

And let the family know he was gay

Trying to stop him was futile, is the least I can say

I told him to rethink but he pushed me away

Telling me, him acting on my advises was final

As I shouted at him

“Not this way! Not when you’ve poured drinks in your skull!”

From his decision, he didn’t sway.

I haven’t seen him after that, up to this day.

 

It has been mere minutes today

Since we had a “family meeting”

That consisted of three hours of lectures

Half of it,

Pertaining to my younger brother’s emotional behaviour

My father telling him to ‘man-up’

While the twelve-year-old stared

At the twirling fan on the living room ceiling,

Tears streaming down his face.

 

Today,

I enter my elder brother’s room

Only to find it empty,

The walls stripped bare

‘Cause my father burnt everything

The day he kicked him out of the house

Three years ago yesterday

After he had come out of the closet.

 

Tomorrow,

I shall wake up afresh

With a new energy and hope

Only to find blood

All over the washroom floor

And drops leading to the living room.

 

Tomorrow,

I will enter the living room

Ad my scream will shatter my parents’ eardrums

As they wake up surprised.

 

Tomorrow,

Tears will fill my eyes

As my parents rush downstairs

To find me standing in a pool of blood

Struggling to get my floating brother

Out of the loop that took his life.

 

Tomorrow,

My father will look

Into his twelve-year-old’s dead eyes,

He will look at the red roses

Blooming on his sliced wrist

And the rope marks on his neck.

 

Tomorrow,

He will find the note my brother wrote

Half covered in blood, apologizing, saying

“I’m sorry father, but I couldn’t ‘man-up’.

I couldn’t disappoint you, so I did the next best thing.”

 

Tomorrow,

My father will break.

He will cry over his twelve-year-old’s death

And say ‘sorry’

Over and over and over again

To the unresponsive blue and purple face

As my mother’s banshee screams echo.

 

Tomorrow,

My father will realize

‘Sorry’ doesn’t heal a broken part.

‘Sorry’ doesn’t revive a dead heart.

 

Father,

Now in your look, there is a chilling frost

As the seed of masculine toxicity in your mind rots

But,

Father dear,

At what cost?