A Letter To My Father, The Homophobe

Dear Dad,

I’m sorry that you couldn’t accept me for who I am, and I’m even more sorry that you think I’m this way by choice. I could blame a lot of things for your close-minded ignorance—your upbringing, the generation you belong to, conservative talk radio—but ultimately that would be unfair to all the fathers out there who grew up in the same political climate as you and yet don’t so callously discriminate against their own flesh and blood. No, I’m afraid the blame rests solely on you, and so you have to live with being a hateful little man for the rest of your life. I will not be defined by your prejudice. Not anymore.

I think what upsets me even more than your bigotry is the fact that you can’t even own up to it; for such a big, straight, macho man, you sure did feel the need to hide behind a bunch of flimsy excuses when exiling your only son from the family home at the tender age of twenty-six. You said it had nothing to do with my sexuality, and you denied that my “black” boyfriend played a part in your decision (it’s “person of color” now, by the way) even though we both know that you’ve never had a gay or POC friend in your life. You actually had the nerve to blame my drug use and consistent refusal to get so-called help on your inability to accept that this is 2014 and some boys kiss boys now.

By the way, did you notice that I said MY drug use? Because it’s MY body that these drugs are going into; that you would even go so far as to accuse me of lifting money from your wallet while you were sleeping to fund my habit shows just how pathetic you truly are. You’ve obviously started misplacing it because you’re getting old and senile, and you saw me as a perfect scapegoat to distract yourself and mom from the fact that your brain is slowly deteriorating into mush. Enjoy the ravages of age, you geriatric thug, because I won’t be there to comfort and clean you in your time of need. I am going to have an awesome life, with or without your approval.

You can keep that insulting little envelope of cash you handed me as I walked out the door, by the way. I mean, obviously, you can’t keep it, because I’ve taken it and spent it already, but if you think that condemning your offspring to a life of homeless destitution is somehow negated by giving them a measly five thousand bucks at the last second then you’ve got another thing coming. I’ll bet you’re secretly gay, that mom is nothing more than a beard, and that the money you gave me was some confused attempt to solicit a sexual favor from me. You’re sick and you need help. Call me when you arrive in this century, you fucking dinosaur.

Hoping you die in a Waffle House fire.