....there was a boy. Not like the other boys, not that there were many of his own age around, and those who were couldn't understand our boy, he was too 'clever', and couldn't climb trees or play football very well, couldn't swim, couldn't ride a bike. No fun. And he was fat, too. Easy to 'tease', easy to leave out, to leave behind. And so our boy turned inwards, learned to enjoy his own company, read lots of books, became even more 'clever', even stranger to his peers. What he had, no-one wanted. What he wanted, he was soon to find, wasn't to be had.
Because, as the boy's body began the journey that would take him towards being a man, he found he was different in another way. A way that pushed him even further away from those around him, that pushed him into what seemed like a convenient hiding place, but that became an inescapable prison, an oubliette without light or hope. Because our boy found that he wasn't entranced, like his coevals, by the girls that seemed to be all around, but that his fascination was for the boys who he went to school with, played cricket with, tried to be friends with. He soon found, though, that his fascination was anathema to, as far as he could tell at 13, everyone. His mask only slipped once, when two of his classmates, as boys sometimes do, chose to display all that made them boys in an teacherless classroom, and our boy craned his neck to try, unsuccessfully, to see the show, and was caught by others trying to see, was subjected to merciless derision. But the lesson was learned, there and then. Don't ever, ever, let anyone know who you are, what you want. You're filth in their eyes, never, never let them see. The dungeon's door was locked in that classroom, the key thrown away - from within, by the boy himself.
And so the boy became a man, still hiding, pretending, lying. Never letting them see. And all the while, trapped within, the lost and lonely boy, who just wanted another boy to love.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
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