2

The book’s triggering took an unexpected turn. The story Harley was telling ended up having to do with sexual abuse.
Last page, reading group guide discussion point #4. _There are very few male influences in Harley’s life. He obviously grew up in a family with fairly traditional gender roles. Yet Harley was not interested in hunting, sports or other ‘manly’ pursuits. Do you think this was a subconscious rejection of his father’s worst masculine qualities? _
Were they nightmares? Yes. But I’ve had them so long, I don’t notice them anymore. I just refer to them as dreams.
I went on broken spirits.com. I felt worse and only posted a sentence. I began my routine of thoroughly going through all the forums, starting with child abuse. I thought, what are you doing? Well, they say that helping others can sometimes make your own self feel better. Well the people who said that were stupid. And I closed out the screen.
Lonelita says keep writing but I’m tired of each scribbled note, each staring back at me like I’m Alice in Wonderland, them saying, _Drink me,_ or at least soak it in, _Push this button,_ _Feel this._ And I do, but it never becomes natural, everything still being done on purpose.
Was it an incestuous relationship?
Yes.
Why is it that a life is never one story. But all the stories meshed together. It seems impossible to accept or understand fully. But then I see a sunset, and I know again. So simple and then I see all the colors, all the details, all the chance that caused it, all the chaos and that one beautiful Wildness -- that is a sunset -- that is me.
On A__’s part. I had no idea. I thought she was just nice to me. I didn’t understand why she flaunted her boyfriend in front of me, like I was supposed to be jealous. It made me feel accused of something dirty, something unnamable but untrue, something she simply assumed.
According to the articles inner barriers recommended, I am to pay attention to my feelings, which are always there, but not always acknowledged. They say to begin with noticing discomfort. Which for the last few days has amounted to me intermittently turning the air conditioner on and off.
.. the always implied fatal rejection if I ever didn’t go along with her. Like agreeing that this person is not cool and this other one is. Or agreeing to see this movie and not that one. Years later, the enormity of her wrath and bitterness when the Darkness became undeniable and I cut her out of my life ..
Last page, reader‘s group guide discussion point #9: _Sexual tension between Harley and Amber is evident throughout the story. Is a certain portion of this natural when teens reach puberty?_
I wouldn’t know. I didn’t allow any finding out. I understand now why I was sexually repressed in that house. I did it for me. To insist His innocence, against their sick assumptions. I forced myself not to notice women, not to go there. I prayed to god to help me.
I can feel the storm of the house. I can hear it like a hurricane, the memories, swarming.
It made sex wrong. Sexuality wrong. Attraction to women wrong.
I looked over my previous writings and it seemed wooden, almost boring. Really its soaked with sadness. I confuse sadness with indignity. I leave it out, because it’s impossible to describe, and also because I refuse the idea that such things can be expressed without first the other person understanding that such things can never be expressed.
Like toward the end of E___ and M___ and me. They were best friends. People thought they were married. Each one was in love with me because I was male and ripe. I didn‘t sleep with either one of them, except for E___ but only toward the end.
They didn’t seem to register that I had just been through something traumatic. They only thought about themselves, and their own hurt. It was impossible to explain how I felt, I knew, the only chance I had was if they knew this, that way they would understand that what I said was only an attempt. But they never registered it, until it was too late and our little family was dissolved.
But my body feels connected to them. My mother, my father, my sisters. I hate it to the point I ignore it, stay unaware of it. Harley’s in the same boat. He makes it not seem so bad, so I’m aware of it now.
I felt like a storm was going on in my head. I was having a hard time. I looked for the boy. I tried to feel my bones.
When I finished the book, the storm seemed to end. And I felt calm, peaceful.
I’m really not like him, and I guess I never was. I didn’t finish the book til two in the morning. I had read it in a storage room, because I had been too embarrassed to be around K___, so I was avoiding our room. My back hurt from sitting in the metal folding chair I’d found. I left, and went to take care of myself.
_____________
　
I worked out in the empty, silent gym.
I guess I don’t want to be like Harley. I don’t mind my writing now. I know I’m real, I trust it, I don’t have to prove it, I realize they’re soaked with sadness, that that’s why the words are so hard to come up with, that they come out wooden and flat.
People want him to be that way, and so did I once. Because then they feel like they know him. Because he stays the same, trapped in a book, trapped in a story. That makes him safe. But I know he’s normal, same as me. Just as Wild as me. The story is just a story. It hurt, because I related to him deeply.
No matter how important my feelings, life moves on, and that’s okay. Something inside of me doesn’t accept moving on. In order to stay right there, it refuses to feel, insisting the feeling must be given more power, more permanence.
I don’t want to be like Harley. I want to be Him. Like how K___ is his own Him.
K___ never has anything to write about, and if he tried I bet it would be boring and badly written.
I see more in K__ than is there. I see Him, accosting me.
I went to take a shower. It was three in the morning and I was alone. I noticed how young I was.
I ask myself how I feel about all this.
Free.