If I looked back
At you
Today,
As who I now am,
Would you still recognize me?
Could you still see in me
The one you hoped,
Back then,
To become?
That shy,
Quiet
And frightened boy-
So often alone,
A step behind the shadows
And I’m still not sure
If it was where you wanted
To be
Or the only place
To hide.
You built a world
Within those bedroom walls
And seemed to dream up
Lifetimes
Before you actually learned
To live,
Where you escaping
The quarreling voices
Downstairs
Or just avoiding the
Feelings inside?
On my knee,
Over grown, over time
With dark brown hairs,
There still lies
The white scar you made there
When you fell at 10
From road to curb-
Do you remember?
On my forehead,
Now higher-
And with less hair than before-
That tiny mark
From the collision
With head and pillar
In the driveway,
Sunday morning,
After Mass,
At 12,
In the rain.
On my right foot,
Underside-
Just below the ball,
I can still feel the stab
Of the nail
You walked on-
Back garden,
Mid summer,
In the middle of the game,
Unimaginable pain.
Does this help
To remind you
Of who I was
And so recognize
Who I’ve become?
I remember
Your fears
Back then-
Are you there yet?
Are they slowly
Taking over and tucking in-
Reverting spoken words to
But thinking thoughts?
Has it begun yet
To creep along your skin,
At night,
After the bullying boys
In the day?
Those days that
Tore from you
Everything that school
Should have offered
And replaced it
With the fear
Of the next push or shove,
Spit or jeer.
That time when sick days
Became more common
To the week
Than saturdays,
When bedrooms
Were the sanctuary
And playgrounds
The prison.
There are no scars
On my skin,
Today,
Of those milestones
But you know
I am marked
Because of them,
Nonetheless.
Perhaps you are a little older-
Passed along into
Those teenage years
When prayers
Were piled
Onto fucked-up feelings
And the complexities of
Sexual awakenings.
All those years
Of wanting for myself
To be
Nothing more
Than normal,
Nothing to note me
The Nancy,
Nothing to notice me
Different.
Nothing to make me feel alone
In a world
I’d barely experienced,
In a body
Barely developed,
In a mind
Still grasping at straws-
Feeling broken before begun.
How would it feel to know, now
And carry it back to then,
That I’ve loved-
Openly and freely
Exactly as I’ve wanted,
Who I wanted
And when I wanted?
Would it comfort you
To know that when the secret’s
Out
You’ll start to wonder
What the worry was about?
In time-
Awaiting you
On the eve of 18-
Even those you imagined
To be your greatest enemies
Will become your biggest supporters.
Let me shout you aware
That you were the only one
To ever really cast yourself out-
During all those years
When you locked yourself in.
Believe me,
Truly,
When the shadows
Loose their attraction-
The light shifts
In your favor.
I remember
How old you felt
When you were young-
Smiling outwardly
To hide the secret within.
Dear child,
Brave one-
Would you laugh
At me now
If I told you
How young I feel
Now that I’m old-
Perhaps the final rewards
Of secrets having been told.
Would you recognize me
If we met right now,
Face to face,
Boy to Man?
I think us more now
A united part of each other
Than ever before
And I smile happily at
My integration,
At last,
Of those days-
Present and past.
Damien B. Donnelly 