History Channel

I watch him from the kitchen. He's leaning back in his favorite chair. Faded overalls and worn out shoes, he needs new ones but is giving me money instead. His knee is bothering him today, I can hear him groan and crack as he stretches, but he won't go to a doctor, he doesn't believe in doctors - only prayer - yet he still tells me how proud he is of me for going to college and not giving up on my dream like he did when he was seventeen, when his parents left him. He always makes sure I know that he would never leave me.

I'm drawn to him now, sitting down to the History Channel and Daddy. The world sees me so differently these days, but he still sees me at seven. Wearing pigtails and pink, sometimes I like it that way, like tonight. In pajamas I sit on the couch, ready for another sermon. He's tired and I don't really listen, but he'll talk about his bible and I'll pretend I care. Listening to his views on God, I count the days since I saw him last, and smile because he's still here, just to spend time with me at one o'clock in the morning, when I know he's been up since five.

Listening to him tell me how "gay is evil", I wish I could tell him all the things he should already know. But I know that he is nothing more than a heartbroken man, angry at the world that has screwed him over time and time again. I want to tell him about my girlfriend and my friends. I want him to be proud of the man that I am growing up to be. But he's too tired for that conversation tonight, and I love him too much to break his heart. Because he's spent my entire life in front of the History Channel giving sermons from his chair, and now he's too tired to listen when I finally have something to say.