Torn Apart

Photo by Jorge Moncayo on Unsplash

There are moments when a choice has to be made, between the thing that is a little but dangerous but feels really good, and the convention that is becoming too much for your growing spirit. This is one of those moments.

My mother calls me into the den.

I straighten my shirt and leave this boy

sitting on the living room sofa

in the TV-glow dark.

"I think," my mother says, staring at her feet,

"You're getting too close out there.

I don't like it."

She returns to her desk while I stand there,

just inside the closed door

and root myself in the impossible, contradictory forces

of the body's pleasure and

the mother's displeasure.

I stretch my hands out to find a guide rope.

There is nothing there.

I am torn apart.