“Separate Rooms” by Craig Roberts

He sits in the living room.
Laughter drifts in from the other room—
warm, familiar, easy.

His father and his cousin—
his father’s nephew—
telling jokes,
sharing a world he cannot enter.

A pang—
longing he cannot name.
Why doesn’t he laugh with me?
What have I done
to make myself invisible?

There has always been this distance.
A wall he cannot climb.
A shadow that follows him
even in bright rooms.

His father—
a stranger
who does not see him,
who cannot name his favorites,
who does not recognize the shape of his heart.

He is tolerated.
Or worse—
he is something to be quietly ashamed of.

A memory rises:
Sunday church.
His father refuses.
His mother pleads.
Tears run down her face.
She turns to him:

"Promise me you will not grow up to be like your father."

Even then, he understood.
Even then, he knew—
this man is someone to be wary of.

Now, on a hot summer day,
he sits in the living room,
feeling the difference clearly:

His cousin—loved,
accessible,
relatable.

He—he is not.

He knows, finally,
he must preserve himself,
because no one else will.

CRAIG ROBERTS is a New York–based writer and educator. Born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, he earned his BFA in Acting from Ithaca College, along with two master’s degrees in education from Mercy College and Baruch College.

As a performer, Craig has appeared in a wide range of productions, from The All Night Strut to The Laramie Project. He now travels the country presenting History Time Henry, an interactive musical that brings American history to life for schoolchildren.

Craig currently resides in Greenwood Lake, New York where he works as a docent at The Museum at Bethel Woods—the historic site of the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival. He enjoys teaching school groups about that transformative moment in music history.