As a high school football player, I wanted to die
Every day;
Not kill myself…
Just die
A lot.
End it all. Be a hero. Not a queer-o.
As a high school football player, I was an
All-Star;
I wanted to love among those stars,
Not tread the earth among the constant fear;
I never knew the courage it took to wake up each day,
To not let the world know of the small explosions
That pulsed through my soul -the longings
For that unspoken unspeakable moment when
Everything is to be told
and he’s holding me.
At 17, the more I grew, the stronger I became
The less alive I felt
I was a faint fire in those wild, frozen ephebic woods
Waiting and wanting to warm anyone;
Comforted by only the warm whisper of coulds
I would do so much, I wanted
To do so much more,
But my self-imposed exile was an outstretched hand
To no man’s land.
Then I read A Streetcar Named Desire
And somehow saw myself in some way in Blanche
I didn’t want to kill myself.
The first boy I ever kissed did that –
the day after he lovingly set my lips afire.
Yes; Love… all at once and much too completely *
I just wanted more and more
-I was an expanding galaxy of want-
My only need, desire
I wanted more- than Blanche, and Brick, and Chance, and Lady…
I fell impossibly in love with a college boy named Nick,
And chased him for two years living on hope and maybe.
When I was a high school football player
I wanted
More to hide than be seen;
And I wanted more to be dead than alive;
But then I learned that
death is the opposite of desire, *
And I wanted so much more than to just survive,
To be so much more than just alive;
I wanted…SO MUCH….
I wanted
To be someone’s fire
I wanted
More and more and more
To be desired.
*lines spoken by Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire
