"I am John," I tell the boy. I am John. I am John. I am John. And I'm cold, and I'm in the city, and I'm not bleeding anymore, and I am John. I grasp for something amidst the few objective facts I can recall. I cling to them like they were life because they are stable, they are trustworthy, they won't change on me and I like that. The boy is still staring at me, I wonder what his name is, but the darkness comes again.
I am 12, I am kissing Bryan in my room, my first kiss, my first love. He pulls away, looking at me with disgust. My heart sinks.
"What the fuck are you doing?! What the fuck! I'm not a faggot!" he screams.
"I-I-I just, I think I l-love you..." I blurt it out. The words tumble from my mouth without much thought from me. Turns out that was a bad idea.
"You fucking faggot! How dare you?!" He yells at me as tears start to role down my cheeks.
"I should have known you where one of those freaks. I can't believe I was friends with you, you queer." He punches me in the stomach. I gasp for air as the door swings open.
"What the fuck is going on in here?" my father asks. He's sober; he stopped drinking when I was five. He never thought he had a problem until the night he came home drunk and hit me. He was so guilt ridden that he immediately got into AA and gave up drinking.
"Your son tried to kiss me, he's a little faggot!" I snap back to the present as Bryan screams at me and the runs out of the room.
"No. It's not true. Tell me it's not true." I start crying even more. I can't speak. I am mute.
"Fucking talk to me John! Tell me it's not true! My son is NOT a faggot. You are not one of those people, you can't be. You won't be." He looks angry. He begins to scare me. He never will stop scaring me.
"I-I-I just. I loved him. I mean I-I don't know. I think so. I mean, ya, I'm a faggot. A dirty fucking faggot" I manage to gasp through the sobbing, barley getting the last part out. I collapse in my bad and weep.
"God damnit I need a drink!" He leaves my room and by the time my mother returns from work he's drunk. She begins to cry, when she hears what he has to say about me, she begins to weep.
I wake from my dream to the same boy sitting next to me smiling.
"What's your name?" I manage to ask.
"Tanner."
"Thanks Tanner," I reply. And it hits me. I'm in the city. I'm hungry. I'm homeless. And suddenly as the objective facts begin to give way to stark subjective reality of what my life has now become the fear and grief hit me hard. Wave after wave of the pain, I can't catch my breath as I begin to sob. I can't breath, I'm frightened. Tanner picks me up and holds me in his arms as the sorrow flows through me in uncontrollable torrents.
"It's okay Bryan, let it out. I'm here for you, your okay; I'll help you through this." The tears begin to subside, the pain replaced my exhaustion, more emotional now then physical and I fall asleep in Tanner's arms.