The Suburbs
by
Eros Livieratos
We were watching Neon Genesis Evangelion in your room. Your brother had the VHS tapes—you said he wouldn’t mind. I remember crying. About nothing. Just an overwhelming sensation, a blanketed feeling of weight. With your small hands you assured me—you were suffering too. And so were the characters, and my mother, and your brother, and your father, and the neighbor who sometimes babysat.
“The whole word’s sad, it’s just how it is.”
We ate grilled cheese with burnt crust from a convection oven twice our age. A relic of an advertised future which never came. Your father was a kitchen counter prophet, he warned of the war coming and the ragheads who looked like me without the rag.
“You’re not a terrorist, are ya?”
You moaned “dad” before you knew of innuendo or kinks, just shame.
Timmy would come from the end of the cul-de-sac and tug on your hair. He pushed me off the trampoline. I still have the scar on my knee from the stitch. His sister put my hands under her shirt behind the garden—a trauma in polka dots surrounded by daisies.
I cried for a week afterwards.
When I told you I was gay, you said your heart broke a little. You said you’d love me all the same. I remember eating apricots in Paris on a study abroad trip. I met a man whose arms could cradle me. I slept with nightmares of being beaten like lamb. The waters of Rhodes were so blue in my mind as my body fertilized the trajectory of the waves. I was floating debris—I wanted to stay there forever.
When you were married, your face was a Bernini sculpture. You’d gush over the hours in bed and the tea kettle that never stopped whistling. A period of bliss; candy. When he passed, you were old and I was gone too.
You’d write to pass the time, to remember the feeling of palm to paper—what it felt like to make marked mistakes. You cried about your father in the off hours, while making tea or brushing your teeth. Your reflection would be a map of lovers and friends. You’d touch yourself in the evening and tear at the passing of time—the digital archive would never strengthen your wrists or flatten your stomach. It would be okay. You’d reminisce at photos, you’d talk to me before bed and wondered if I had ever felt a man’s touch. To kiss firm lips or feel the breath of a lover in the morning. I had, and I do.
You’ll wish I stuck around a little longer.
“The whole word’s sad, it’s just how it is.”
We ate grilled cheese with burnt crust from a convection oven twice our age. A relic of an advertised future which never came. Your father was a kitchen counter prophet, he warned of the war coming and the ragheads who looked like me without the rag.
“You’re not a terrorist, are ya?”
You moaned “dad” before you knew of innuendo or kinks, just shame.
Timmy would come from the end of the cul-de-sac and tug on your hair. He pushed me off the trampoline. I still have the scar on my knee from the stitch. His sister put my hands under her shirt behind the garden—a trauma in polka dots surrounded by daisies.
I cried for a week afterwards.
When I told you I was gay, you said your heart broke a little. You said you’d love me all the same. I remember eating apricots in Paris on a study abroad trip. I met a man whose arms could cradle me. I slept with nightmares of being beaten like lamb. The waters of Rhodes were so blue in my mind as my body fertilized the trajectory of the waves. I was floating debris—I wanted to stay there forever.
When you were married, your face was a Bernini sculpture. You’d gush over the hours in bed and the tea kettle that never stopped whistling. A period of bliss; candy. When he passed, you were old and I was gone too.
You’d write to pass the time, to remember the feeling of palm to paper—what it felt like to make marked mistakes. You cried about your father in the off hours, while making tea or brushing your teeth. Your reflection would be a map of lovers and friends. You’d touch yourself in the evening and tear at the passing of time—the digital archive would never strengthen your wrists or flatten your stomach. It would be okay. You’d reminisce at photos, you’d talk to me before bed and wondered if I had ever felt a man’s touch. To kiss firm lips or feel the breath of a lover in the morning. I had, and I do.
You’ll wish I stuck around a little longer.
NUNUM
Blending Flash Fiction & Art
