Well and Truly There by the Beginning by Lucy Robin
Well and Truly There by the Beginning
Dad made his own bread on Saturdays in a yellow machine that said SUNBEAM
on it. The start button had caved in, so you had to stick a pen inside to press it.
When nobody was around, I tore off pieces of raw dough to chew on.
At the corkboard in the living room, I pointed to photos where I thought I looked
gay. Do babies cry because they need something, or because they can’t say it?
Once, I was the only one who realised the cat was missing, and two days later Dad found
her in a garbage bag on the nature strip. I take my girlfriend to look at the old house
from the outside, and she says it’s not as small as I made it out to be. Later, when she
takes off my boxers, she tells me to leave the blinds open. I am learning so much these
days: how forgiveness feels, how the truth is always left standing.
We are wracked by different voices: hers in doubt, mine in shame. Adrienne Rich wrote
this touch is political. Walking past the Vape Shop on the highway, a man rolls down his
window and screams YEAH! because of my arm around her waist. Staggering, how
cheerful she is in the driver’s seat. How when we go to the gallery, we enjoy different
things: she the infinitude of Pi, and I the bronze statues.
I wasn’t any good at triple jump, couldn’t hack the sequence. But every
night the year I was thirteen, I made my Mum promise that I was not a lesbian. I have
never been able to control my impulses. When my parents found their bread pock-
marked, they were never surprised. On the day I was born, Oma wrote in her diary that I
cried lustily because I was well and truly there by the beginning.
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