the sweetest tongue

Breaking Things

Sunday, February 15th, 2004 | self-deprecation

I just scared these two people doing their work here in the lab when I threw my phone forcibly onto the floor, causing the phone to break into six separate, lovely pieces. I then proceeded to piece them back together. It looks just like new now, except for that one crack, but it’s still turned off. It was a call from my mother.

I think my mistake was giving her my cell phone number. And also giving her my room number. I have a mind to disconnect the phone once I get back to my room. I’m the kind fo son who can live without phone calls from his mother. I know that’s bad, but it’s come to this. I don’t need to call her anymore. She’s already made it clear that she won’t support me. And I’ve already made it clear that my life would be so much better without her.

That application to Georgia State is lying collecting dust in some electronic filing cabinet online somewhere. Every phone call from her is about filling out that app and sending it in, or else I will not go to school, and I will not get my education. My mom has already expressed her wish/command that I shall not spend another semester in Miami. Now, it isn’t that I want to 100% stay in Miami, that the lure of the city has taken me in. I’ll admit that I get that thought about leaving Miami about once a week. The friends I held close to me through that trying freshman year are gone or have forgotten about me. And I know that this school does not have the best programs for the fields I am majoring in. My problem is more of the fact that I have to live under the same roof as someone who insists on the security of her children through suffocation.

I just need to be cut out of the family. She’s already turned the rest of the family against me anyway. My only ally, my dad, passed away just before I entered college. And it was because of him that I had contemplated not leaving Puerto Rico. I went out with him every Saturday night, driving long rides just so we could enjoy a great meal. He did it for as long as he could, and I learned to enjoy restaurants and meals as havens away some of the harsh realities of life, like sickness, stress, and closeted homosexuality. It’s hard to think about losing friends when you’re enjoying a nice plate of spinach Fettucine in Alfredo Sauce, or a fried whole snapper in a fresh tomato sauce.

Ahh, food is love. And yes, Love is food. Food can be made with love, and no matter who ends up eating it, you know that love and care has gone into it. And that is what matters.

I snapped once when I was in high school in my senior year (This was post-nervous-breakdown junior year). I forgot what happened, but it involved my mother, and barricaded my bedroom door by pushing my bookcases over, my treasured books spilling out onto the tiles. The most heart-wrenching part was when I knew that my father was outside my door, on his wheelchair, wondering what was wrong. And I knew that I couldn’t tell him, because I knew he wouldn’t understand. I did not know enough words in Cantonese or Spanish to express how I felt.

The phone is silent, I haven’t turned it on. And I don’t want to, because I’m scared.