Yes, Daddy

by Jonathan Parks-Ramage

My dream was to become a playwright, but I lacked the one thing most aspiring playwrights possess: rich parents.

Rarely did my sexual encounters last much longer than that; my lovers always flinched at the subtle desperation that crept into my tone when I asked if we could “hang again soon.” My loneliness was a disease no one wanted to catch.

“Because if I were to say one honest thing to my mother, I would have to say them all.” Richard sighed. “And even if I were brutally candid about the pain she’s caused me over the years, she wouldn’t hear it. Denial is my mother’s superpower.”

“The things we worship eat us alive.” The things we worship eat us alive.

Desire places people in dangerous positions. This was a fact I’d yet to learn and something Richard knew all too well. The real reason Richard invited me to the Hamptons? To play games he knew I’d lose.

It was as if religion had been rendered powerless by commerce—holy shrines removed by enterprising architects and replaced with rows and rows of new things to worship. Things to buy. Things much easier to obtain than God’s forgiveness.

I imagine the answer had something to do with a fear that all your success would vanish if you betrayed the systems of abuse that bolstered it. Your contract with evil.

Trauma is like a gift. The shittiest fucking gift in the world. Coal in your motherfucking stocking. But the minute you receive it, it becomes yours. And it’s your responsibility what you do with it. And you can use it as an excuse to destroy your life and destroy the lives of people around you, but you shouldn’t.