The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 44. ...Comic Book Heroes I...

.

Comic Book Heroes I

And I began

to realize

I was different

when I noticed

none of the guys

in the comic books

ever fell in love

with their friends.

+

I was all giggles

and happiness

with him

there beside me

both of us writing

a thousand times each:

I must not do naughty things

in the bathroom.

I must not do naughty things

with my classmate

in the bathroom.

I must not do naughty things

with my classmate

in the bathroom.

+

I went alone

to the movies one afternoon

and took a seat

beside a boy there,

and little by little

while Prince Charming

kissed Sleeping Beauty

I closed my eyes,

filled with the kind of hope

common to kids of seven.

+

“That kid’s queer,”

they said.

Without asking

what the word meant,

I went home

and under covers

printed

with Walt Disney characters,

I spent

my first sleepless night.

+

Victor Manuel

was delicate and gentle.

There was a tenderness

in the way

he looked at his classmates,

and they,

bothered by it,

kicked him, threatened him,

mocked him.

They beat the hell out of him

because he had a limp wrist.

Scared, terrified,

I looked on with my own hands

crammed deep in my pockets.

I don’t know what

may have become of him,

but when they hit him then

he cried.

He stayed behind

cleaning up his face

among the desks

in the classroom,

alone,

and I like one of his tormentors

walked away.

I was afraid

they might discover the warmth

in my gaze too.

And they were

proud of themselves

for having taught a queer

a lesson.

I don’t know what

may have become of him.

I’d like to see him again,

changed a little.

Maybe I’d like to see him cry

a bit more,

and then, I think,

I’d like to see him

take a knife

and murder his tormentors

and cut them to shreds

and scatter the shreds all over

the goddamned school,

in all the classrooms,

and in the Chapel

of the Sacred Heart

which prohibits crime.

—Ernesto Bañuelos Enríquez,[i]

1978