you’ll be 9 when you first notice him, that guy who every girl says they have a crush on, not because they actually do, but because “that’s what girls are supposed to do.” and you’ll start to play football with him because that’s what boys are supposed to do, you’ll tell yourself that you don’t like him, instead you just really want to be his friend, be near him, be like him. “boys can’t like boys” you’ll tell yourself, and you will keep playing football every day, even though you realized you hated it a long time ago. 

you’ll be 17 when you meet him, that guy that makes your stomach churn when he says your name, the guy that makes you feel nervous when he asks to hang out. it will be with him where you hear that word again, the one your dad used when you said you didn’t want to get a haircut the summer after freshman year. that one you heard your friend say in the fifth grade after his mom let it slip one night, she’ll tell him never to repeat it, yet all it will do is give him an incentive for him to use it more. you will have thought about saying it, but you never do, not because you didn’t want to offend anyone, but you’ll be scared that once it leaves the confines of your mind it will become more than just a thought. “please check for monsters” almost as if once it crawls out of your lips it will wrap its arms around you and sink its teeth into your back.

you’ll be 18 when he kisses you for the first time, you’ll feel a shock go down your body, it’ll resonate at your feet but it won’t leave you. and you’ll fall in love then and there, and none of it matters. you’ll get out of his 2004  corolla that you’ve spent countless hours in. you’ll walk up your front lawn in silence, and he’ll follow you, not because he feels like he has to, but because you know he now loves you too. 

it will be that night when you leave him on your patio, 

it will be that night when you slam the door in his face as you force down muffled sobs, 

and it will be that night where you say that word for the first time.

you’ll be 23 when you finish your fifth year and graduate college, “a victory lap” your parents will say at their dinner parties and at their church luncheons. you’ll sit alone in your room after each of these events and stare at the business bachelors hanging neatly on your wall, each word neatly printed in ink and signed hastily by a dean that wouldn’t know your name until he signed it on a degree. you’ll come back home from college and start a job you never feel the need to mention. “did i get to be a fireman?” you will sit alone at your cubicle one evening, hours after you were allowed to leave, the woman to your left will ask you out for drinks on a whim, you will agree and have a night like any other, not quite good, but not quite bad. you will marry her six months later.

you’ll be 24 when you start taking pills. you’ll hate taking them the first time, you’ll hate it the second, the third, and the fourth. you’ll do it time after time and you’ll hate it more than the last, yet nothing will feel worse than the feeling of not having them. 

you’ll be 29 when you get a divorce, most people will know you’re different by then, know that you are sick. you will go to a bar one night and think about why you married her in the first place, you will realize after your fifth drink that she was just proof. proof that you were normal, and you will realize after your sixth drink that it wasn’t proof for your parents, or your coworkers, but proof for you. because you realize after your eighth drink you realize in the end, that’s all you care about.

you’ll be 31 when you realize your parents are like the pills you take, not just in the fact that you hate them, but in the fact that you’d rather spend the rest of your life with them than have to imagine a day when they are no longer there, so you’ll go to the dinner parties, the picnics, and to church every sunday. one morning after church you’ll take a few pills in a bathroom stall and sit against the wall and stare at your hands. you’ll run the tips of your dried out fingertips across the indentions in your palms and realize that the pills aren’t working. and you will stay in that stall for the next hour, it will be in that very bathroom where you put your head in your hands and you realize that it’s too late for you, far earlier than it actually was.

you’ll be 39 when dad dies, you’ll take the day off from work, you’ll drive to the church and sit in the back of the chapel. your mom will text you after the funeral in hysterics asking you where you were, and you will apologize to her, time after time, you will explain that work kept you later than you thought and that you would see her soon.“happy fathers day,” that night you will put on dad’s old jacket, you’ll strip off your shirt and the bandages,and you’ll navigate it gently over your arms that’s poked full of holes,”I always hated bees,” you'll look in the mirror and you will begin to weep, even though that isn’t what boys do.

you’ll be 42 when you stop answering calls, your phone will begin to collect dust the same way your diploma did, “I don’t like to clean my room” once hanging up on your  wall in your old room at moms house, now sits at the bottom of a halfway unpacked box in the corner of your apartment, by the time you’re 43 you will have had your own place for almost 5 years, and still that box will sit in the corner, halfway unpacked.

you’ll be 51 when mom dies, “she lost a great battle” the lawyer at the reading will tell you, “don’t be a sore loser” as if the acknowledgment of a prolonged struggle would serve as enough substance to convey any kind of remorse, especially since the remorse was not one of genuine nature. however it will prove that mom won’t be the only casualty, a bank account once filled by life insurance from the passing of your father will have been left to crumbs as hands of medical greed swipe it away. Radiation, hospital stays, chemotherapy, you will feel annoyance followed by a stab of guilt, the cheap carpet rubbing at your shoes as you bite your lip in frustration at the miniscule amount left in your name. however your interest will peak when he hands you over a small cardboard box. you will look into it, walking out of the office that evening you will have wished you never did. getting home you will open the small box your mother left you, and you will grab the unlabeled empty pill bottle from inside the box she left you. you’ll learn to hate her for it, for ignoring, for leaving you to bask in the filth of the life that was laid out for you. 

“i think i’m lost”

you took the wrong path, but how could you not, it was so well worn. a path worn from your father, your father’s father, and the father of his father, a path taken so many times that there was no way it couldn’t have been the way you were supposed to go.

you’ll be 52 when you check into rehab, you won’t remember why you did, you will only be able to feel the walls collapse on you as you beg for a freedom which could never be achieved by walking out of the facility doors. you will sit alone in a room for two days, yet it was there that you will realize you had been alone for a lot longer.Time will pass, you will leave that room.you will begin to eat again, sleep in longer increments than you thought was possible. you'll begin to read again, you will find your favorite spot under a sycamore tree in the courtyard where you will spend most of your time reading. you will sit at every support group and do every exercise they give you, you won’t remember why you started but you will remember why you finished. you meet eyes with him a few months in from across the cafeteria during dinner, his shoulder length graying hair and his goatee that hugs his chin and leaves it glimmering like silver will be what you notice first. he’ll have round glasses that make his eyes appear larger than they actually are and a stature so skinny it looks as if he is about to snap in two. he will approach you and say his name is arlo. you will sit in bed that night and look at the cracks in the ceiling, you will realize at that moment that you can not sit and stare at your wounds forever. the next morning you’ll take Arlo to read with you under the sycamore tree. 

you will be 71 when you decide to wake up early and watch the sun rise, your footsteps will be drowned out by the sound of arlo’s snores as you leave the room. you will sit on the front steps of your patio, the morning wind brushing against your aged skin. the first rays of morning sunlight will begin to touch down on the winding hills that sit in front of you. you will grab the notebook at your side and uncap the pen that’s tucked inside it, you will take a moment and begin to write a letter, you won’t address it to anyone, the person who it’s for will already know everything that happens.