#cecil's trauma isn't explored much in the show but it feels so present sometimes

[this-is-a-podcast-fanblog]

Young Cecil doing his homework with no help and walking past his mom’s half-open door hoping she doesn’t hear him sneaking out and doodling things like “CGP + EH” in his notebook (crossed out) and turning in permission slips at school that the teachers reject because they’re all signed by his big sister and feeling a shiver down his spine whenever he sees a too-tall tree and stealing makeup from drug stores but popping out the mirrors first and falling asleep to the radio and stacking cassette tapes next to his mattress because he never got a frame for his bed and leaving out bowls of water for stray cats and chasing the mice out of his room and learning Torah verses even though he knows no one other than Abby will come to his Bar Mitzvah and crying himself to sleep at night but making up stories in the morning about the citizens he’s seen around town and bumping into Josie at the supermarket where she offers to drive him to the bowling alley and bringing his mom mother’s day flowers even though he’ll be the one who puts them in water, plucks away the dead leaves, throws them away while she watches with blank eyes and when he stares at the loud sunrise he feels an ache in his chest he can’t explain yet and hating that Abby can get a summer job but he’s not old enough yet, it’s starting to feel like decades have passed and he’s still not old enough, and failing his practice SATs because he had to teach himself all those big words and dying in front of a broken mirror and looking at a mirror with broken shards that’s still intact and being a beautiful person in spite of everything and dragging his boy scout recorder into a blanket fort to record cassette tapes about how one day things will be better, one day things will be better, one day things will be better. 

#young cecil #cecil gershwin palmer #neglect is a horrible form of abuse #im so sorry to anyone who like cecil went through that #tw childhood neglect #tw childhood trauma #cecil's trauma isn't explored much in the show but it feels so present sometimes #young cecil is dead long live young cecil #wtnv