Chapter Text
“Who am I?”
A question with no answer, a query with layers of insecurities bound to trauma
A question that Tommy frequently asks himself.
“Who might you be?”
A question smiling adults would ask when he was young, when they would drive their shiny cars to see if they could love tommy
A question that would bring about the fantasy of driving to a place he could call home with nice people who loved him so very much
But the backseat always remained empty
And the fantasy’s stayed within their creator, to be called upon during late nights sleeping on stained mattresses, with the whimpers of orphans and forgotten children surrounding him.
The group homes were the only home tommy knew for the first 13 years of his life
Until one day a happy man with two quiet and quite frankly rude sons showed up to offer him the thing he’d been dreaming of for what felt like centuries
A home, a family
But with good things there is always a bad that follows
Tommy knew this
Tommy told himself this over and over again
Don’t trust
Stay alert
But it’s just so easy to fall into a fantasy that is finally there
And to forget the lessons life beat into you
Everyone knows the saying
“Never meet your heroes”
Tommy learned that this could be applied to fantasy’s too
A loving family is a slippery slope
What that slope throws people into is something Tommy still hasn’t learned
a quiet part of him whispers sadness
And an even quieter part of him murmurs abandonment
Months passed quickly and the two quiet boys quickly became his world, his entertainment, his protection
They loved him, and he found himself loving back
They were definitely rude, as his earlier suspicions proved
They called him names and gave pointed looks over his head
But it wasn’t bad, it was just “teasing”
Or whatever that means
Phil (his new dad) was kind in a way that proved Angels existed
He found out during his second year with his family that Phil decided to adopt again when his wife died
Alarms had blared in Tommy’s brain, the lessons trickled back into his brain
“Replacements are easily replaced”
Another life lesson that Tommy would rather forget
But digressing is not Tommy’s strong suit, he would much rather think of the two boys who carved their way into his life
they were orphans as well, another heartbroken story shared during his second year (not with him, problems were never shared with problem children that quiet part of him murmured)
Not the same type of orphan as Tommy though
While Tommy’s orphan identity is comprised of loneliness and cold case workers
His brothers identity would be hot anger of those meant to love and protect you, and scars that refuse to fade throughout the years
They had it bad.
His brothers (Techno and Wilbur) had been in the foster system, bounced from house to house (never homes)
(Tommy found out from a late night trek (not spying but definitely sneaking) where through closed doors he sat and heard the murmuring of his brothers reminiscing over a difficult (to say the least) childhood)
They had been hit
Repeatedly
Tommy didn’t understand why that tore a hole in his heart
(He didn’t understand why a part of him was disappointed)
Nevertheless, when green turned to orange and then repeated, Tommy matured
He started seeing the invisible lines everyone tiptoed around
Don’t talk about the many medications found in the cabinet
Don’t talk about their past foster homes, no questions
Don’t talk about the empty space at the kitchen table
Or the single rose bush that Phil refuses to let die
And with this Tommy’s fantasy cracked
And it kept cracking
Every failed joke, every overhead look never meant for him to see, every scoff
It ripped that whole deeper and deeper into his chest, until his breathes were ragged and his eyes haunted
God what Tommy would do to have trauma worth something
(To be worth something)
He wished so badly to be able to talk about his childhood and receive shocked looks of how bad it was (even when he knew the actions did not resonate with the end result of Tommy’s psyche)
And on one too hot September day
Tommy’s life is put into perspective
“Who am I?”
An innocent question peering at him from the top of the “icebreaker” sheet placed on his desk by a teacher he can’t even remember the name of
His pencil is gripped within an inch of its life, rasping in creaks and cracks
He feels nothing and everything all at once
And it’s too much
The end of the day came quickly (thank god)
And the sheet had been thrown carelessly into the trash, to be retrieved later in the dead of night when thoughts howled in Tommy’s brain, never letting him sleep
It still haunts him though
“Who am I?”
An orphan
A reject
An idiot
An ignorant boy
It’s the truth but it still hurts
Hurts enough that he misses family dinner (for the fifth night in a row)
Not like anyone would miss him, they were all suffocating in how busy and interesting their lives were
They got the “fun” trauma, the stuff that makes you a heroin in a novel, the type of stuff songs are written about
Tommy is boring
Tommy has a trauma like a deer dead on the side of the road, a thing children point at and fear, a thing adults ignore, treated like just another tree they drive by
Even during his stint in therapy, he couldn’t begin to chip into that gaping hole inside of him
Thank god Phil made it clear if Tommy wanted to stop he could, it’s not like Phil thought he had trauma (“It’s just something I like to do with all my kids, I know the foster system tends to ignore mental problems”)
He knows that stupid therapist with her weird pirate hat leaves voice calls on the home phone.
No one ever hears them (Tommy avidly deletes these, he would rather die than have people worry about him, even though the animal in his brain craves it)
Tommy isn’t happy
It’s a hard truth to realize, he should be happy, he has a nice life, but he just can’t, that deer has been dead for a long time, but the cleaners haven’t come to remove it yet
The stacks of scribbled paper in the corner of his room will scream this to him when he sleeps
Tommy is a burden
Tommy has two sides, outside and inside, the outside him is the one he acts with to anyone around him, a happy, loud, obnoxious boy
Inside is this
This tragic faux poetry you have the privilege of forgetting
Because Tommy is-