He put it there. A tiny lot of things. The seed of doubt like Thomas. Isn’t that when Thomas turned dark? When the comets fell in the sky and the pavilion collapsed. Plywood sky perforated like a sheet of paper. Me and Thomas, because he’s someone I understand.
When you touch a little boy it turns to confusion then guilt then shame. Settles like grains of sand sifted as far as they will go, doubt the final product. Growing up I felt close to Thomas. I would never be like Peter. But I could be doubting Thomas. Show me your hands. I’m tired of being lied to. I don’t trust a damn thing.
The seed of doubt grows slowly over time. Doubt about definition and masculinity and protection. A world that was round is now oblong. No matter the straightening I do in my therapist’s office the world will always be a little oblong.
She tells me to trust the process, but I don’t. Trust it. Don’t trust anyone. How am I gonna trust her when I don’t trust myself? But I’m good at pretending. Good at putting my head in a low-hanging cloud while I walk City streets. I can walk through my reality past yours without blinking, and never once will I think about pine tree hands that leaned over to touch me once.
some-
times
predators
are
people who
say
oh honey
don’t be silly!
when you
tried
to be
alive.
That’s when lights turn off and moons come out. Softly glowing moons to keep hold of something. Orbiting the earth far enough I will never be hurt again.
It’s an inconvenience now that accompanies other inconveniences in my life. Pushing the kitchen faucet far to the left to make it stop dripping. Turning myself sideways to slide between the kitchen table and cabinet. Cleaning the mess my dog left in the front room. The towel rack has come off the wall. I can’t open the windows wide because the screen is ripped. Most of my belongings are in storage.
That’s the thing with surviving. The longer you survive the more the major obstacles look like minor inconveniences. I set that pomegranate-sized doubt next to fraying carpet and cracked plaster. Life and its minors. Once you focus on a task—tunnel vision — it all falls away. Maybe that’s why hurt people work hard. In hopes of making tunnel vision the only vision.
Light touches and daft responses, over time, become the arils of the pomegranate. Nests of bloody fleshy beads nested together in one deviant organism. This is what he is. Deviant with story. Deviant with texture. When I see the inside of a pomegranate, I think of lying hands hovering above child’s hips. My undeveloped groin. I think of the idle lies that sit behind him. The way he inveigles me into a game. Trust him. It’s okay. He’s an adult and he knows. What’s okay.
When I think back I’m always on railroad tracks. Blurry trees on both sides. I’m laughing. I don’t know why I’m laughing but I’m laughing. I’m also pulling a kite. But I never leave the train tracks. So happy. Pulling the kite. On the tracks. Like I never saw it coming.
I never allow it to run to completion. The dream. Looking down at the railroad tie beneath my boy’s feet. I’m sad now. I see a pomegranate split in half.
Therapist: I would like for you to trust me.
Me: I prefer not to.
Sometimes I stand in sunlight and look right into the sun. Hold there as long as I can until the sun becomes too much. Eventually the sun becomes too much. Moons aren’t like that. The sun is.
I have always been this way. Needing too much of things until it hurts. Pressing everything into a corner of my body where it’s fearful enough to wound. Then I make it my fault. That way I’m in control. It’s an out-of-control boy’s duty to take back control.
I spin round in the sun and let it eat my body. After enough time I don’t feel anymore pain. Just soul. What I detest is in my body. My soul is something else. My soul doesn’t ask anything of me. Soaks a little sunlight. Sits with me while I figure it out.
I no longer want anything from this. Neither sense nor understanding. Neither to dive in nor excise it from memory. It’s a shadow in a night of shadows. A distant rumble on the tracks. Steam dissipating as it leaves train stacks. Thomas doubting the world around him and me falling in love with Thomas. It’s me sitting across from Christ, offering to get to know him. Slowly.
I can’t promise much and I don’t. People know what they get. I give a little to a few and never give all to one. I’m seed spread over tillage, growing in many places at once. Equal parts soil, sun, seed, and rain.
I still don’t know much about loving. I confuse it with blocks of learning and cubes of ice. I confuse it for something I can study in a book, or swallow, or dive into. I still don’t know what it’s made of, but all that confusion settles when I step into sunlight. Look up at the sun. Hold it as long as I can. Wait. For. It. To.
Roman Newell is hard at work on his debut novel — 20XX — a work in magical realism, which explores the complexities and conflicts in modern day societies amid confusing social norms, rapidly evolving technology, and impact traumas. Follow Roman’s Substack to be added to the 20XX contact list.
I was completely entranced during this whole read, I couldn't look away. the sorrow and the questions that I don't have answers to-not even for myself- wow. tears in my eyes, this is something more than beautiful but I don't have the words for it.
this is one of those where you're at a loss for words by the end of it but still want to show support. (this is my pitiful attempt.) beautiful writing on a hard topic... i'll need another few days to unfurrow my brow.