I've spent counted years
terrified of what those
hands could do.
I'm forced to keep a record
of their works,
a tapastry of scar tissue
and memory seared into me
like a branding.
I have shaken awake
like colors swirling together
into screaming horror
in a paint mixer.
Every choice I have made
good, bad and indifferent
has been informed
by the childhood you
stole from me with
your violence and
your base, spiteful meaness.
You drank yourself,
nightly, into oblivion
and took the day you'd
self-medicated away out
on three scared children
and still not a day went by
that you didn't make
sure they knew how
******* big you still
thought you were.
I was convinced you
were evil incarnate.
That you were larger
than life and too bad
for good to touch.
You took my mother from
me, turned her into
a sobbing wreck,
alternatively apologizing
and pretending nothing
was even happening.
It was so cruel, so precise
it just had to be on purpose.
You drove me so far
into the darkness
I was a lifetime finding
my way back out
and I assumed you'd
known what you were doing
and I learned to hate
everyone and everything
and I started with you
because you taught me
to be that way.
You taught me how little
to trust, how unhelpful
hope can be, how a little bit
of light or laughter only
makes the hurt deeper.
You turned me into an engine
of spite. You taught me how
worthless love can be.
How important it was to be
tough, unfeeling and cruel.
You taught me to be exacting
in my actions, and people
praised me for the lessons
you cut into me.
With distance and with time
I see a different you.
Beaten, as you beat me,
scared and lost and
small, so very ******* small.
You had no designs
no great plan.
You're a little man
who felt big by hurting
some kids.
Nothing original there.
You're an ordinary monster
and I'm not afraid of you
any longer.
I wanted you to know
I do not and may never
forgive you for what
you did and what you are,
for what you made me,
but I do understand.
You made sure of that.
Maybe that was your plan,
I don't know.
I think perhaps you were
not smart enough
to have a plan.
I learned to always have
a plan.
With our cruelty you
accidentally gave us cunning.
I know, it bothers me to
think you may have helped
me in any way, as well.
But I have always had a plan
I have one still.
I have one right now.
Wanna know mine?
I plan to die with the knowledge.
My plan is to make sure
my son doesn't understand.
You must've been so lonely,
you oridinary monster.
I don't need the company.