I'm Straight, I'm Queer, I'm Bi...

I'm straight.
Wish I was bi, though, sometimes...
Look at it one way, it doubles your chances.
Look at it another, it doubles the heartache.

And I thought I -was- bi for a while.
Around age 18 I had a close friend.
A very close, very dear, friend.
He was gay.
And he was caught in an excrusiating emotional trap.
His parents were rich, formal and ultra-conservative.
I suppose they, in their own way, tried to love him,
but they could never accept his sexuality.
It was too... alien... to their lifestyle.
One night, he came on to me...
Agressively so, which wasn't like him at all.
He was an -extremely- shy guy, normally. Very quiet.
And I kissed him back...
Why? So many reasons... a recent break-up, especially.
But it was a mistake of the greatest proportions.
Because I knew he was struggling
and I was attempting to comfort him...
and myself.
The mistake in it was that I, being a confused teen myself,
didn't get the bigger picture.
He had been fighting with his parents and wrestling his feelings
for so long, that he acted out of desperation.
A week went by after that...
Not a word from him.
Then I saw a notice in the local paper.
He had crashed his brand new motorcycle into the pylon of a concrete bridge.
And he wasn't drunk (even beer made him queasy)
and drugs weren't involved.
It was suicide.
And it broke me into a thousand fucking pieces,
which, to this day, I'm still fumbling to pick up.

He deserved more.
He deserved so much more out of life.
He deserved more from his stuck-up asshole parents.
But most of all,
he deserved more from me.

I've never been able to adequatly say goodbye to him.
(His parents wouldn't allow me to attend the funeral)
So instead I've said "So long and see you later".

A dime for a jukebox dirge.

Goodbye Simon.