Lessons Learned as a Teen

My father does not care

About how I feel

I'm his Pillsbury doughboy

To do with as he will

And if I resist

I will be placed in a headlock

Because he should be able to do he wants

And not be asked to stop

My mother does not care

About how I feel

If my emotions are not expressed with virility

They shouldn't be real

I am simply to be

My father's emulation

And what makes me me

Should reach stagnation

Nearly 20 years later

I have much to undo

I recently remembered that the control trickled down

To even the way I held a spoon

Scratch that - cutlery

That life was incredibly  real

And I never received tangible or spiritual compensation

From such a raw deal

And my queerness

Was to be concealed and denied

It's no wonder I barely had friends

When even to myself I lied

I might have been told that I was unique

But I was made to feel like a curse

A burden to be looked after and isolated

And upon my parents' eventual death- left for worse

The experience - ghastly

The lesson - grotesque

And now I must spend my life

Attempting to rectify the mess