snarky lil sprites.

throughout my life many people have come and gone, influencing my soul in insurmountable ways. i shall call them sprites, because they fly in and out my life, make it all magical, cause mischief, and all that fun and mean stuff that sprites are known for. these various sprites have flown in throughout my life, creating a hard tale to read. but it is a tale full of color, wonder, and pain all of which are not make believe.

some of these sprites have different colored glows; some bright and sparkly whilst others are dark and dreary. but i have found that with my age, i find more treasures along the path in this magical forest i call my life. the treasure i have most recently found is that of understanding. true understanding. with this gift from these sprites, i am also finding another gift; a void. a space painted full of anger that is quickly dissipating. a void has never been so beautiful.

when i lie down "on a pillow of bluebonnets, in a blanket made of stars," i dream dreams that i am an artist. it may be merely a fanciful dream, but its a silly one i dare to court. so when i see any voids, it is my urge to fill it with something. but this, this patch of nothingness,... is beautiful. it is a beautiful work of art i dare not try to tweak, as it is perfectly imperfect.

there are times in my journey through the magic forest that i tend to get too cocky, i tend to forget previous life lessons that i've learned. the universe calls upon the fate deity, to remind me. to remind me of not repeating any mistakes. or to remind me of other things long gone by. that is when little sprites fly my way. they usually fly in front of my face like a nagging house fly i have to swat out of aggravation. but it is only for my own good. sometimes the gods and goddesses up there on mount Olympus must send down some help to protect the princess. :-)

tonight they did just that; a dark sprite was sent my way. this particular sprite's own journey through his dark forest has been intertwined with mine for years at a time. our paths were dark together, but were brightened with the separation. it was a painful split but a necessary one. forgiveness was a treasure box i found with this sprite's name on it a couple of moons ago. just recently did i see that the star on orions belt was shrinking. i knew the winds would soon blow him my way once again. it was inevitable. distance is required, friendship unstable. i was reminded of the darkened scary sections of the forest. i sometimes forget that there were too many things in common; more than seeing double trouble but being bearers of cowards' disgrace. it was two secrets never spoken but the heavy load was shared. our paths came together and split apart many times throughout our teenage and young adult years. too much pain prevented any sunshine on either forest. i have fought and struggled to find my sunshine (my wife) in my forest. i went about it in a not so graceful manner, but damnit i am here and i am a survivor, to quote my most fairest sprite of them all. my struggle was one helluva battle, but others are still fighting their war. his forest is sadly still war torn. i am reminded to be so grateful because my forest could have been so much darker, like his currently is. somewhere out there in the land of magical forests, princesses, sprites, and some unseen all being power that watches out for everyone... somewhere out there, some sprite or all knowing being has watched over my magical forest by guiding my path away from the darkest corners of hell. i don't know what i ever did in my past life, or in this one, to deserve such a guardian. one thing i am is grateful, eternally grateful. thank you to whoever or whatever is out there, for keeping this princess safe in her own little magical kingdom.

contemplating.

"what a quandary," exclaims Mrs. Peggy Ingram. and bless my stars, was she right. i have never been in this strange and foreign predicament that i am currently in. my house is totally clean. i have NOTHING left to clean. this has NEVER happened to me before; it feels too damn weird. i feel it is as if i am shamefully betraying my heritage, the very fabric of my upbringing. if my mama knew, she'd surely shit herself. okay well maybe not, but she'd damn sure make some type of snide comment.

growing up in a house with one angry thirteen year old, one innocent four year old, and brand new one month old twin boys meant a very chaotic house. there were always clothes to be folded, put away, bottles to be made, messes to clean, and food to be cooked. looking back now as an adult and being finally freed of my monster in the dark (aka the Evil Faux Czar), i can see the things that i should have done to make things better for my mom and for the greater good of the household. however, aside from the normal hormonal imbalances occurring at the time in my body and suffering the abuse from my evil monster in the dark, i couldn't tell my ass from my head. left or right, up or down... it was all the same to me. there was so much that i was unable to comprehend back then. and to tell you the truth, there's still some that i don't get to this day. i've accepted it but it doesn't mean i have forgiven it, or that any of it was okay. it happened. i can't change the past. so i move on and learn from his mistakes. if anything, i can say quite adamantly that the cycle stops here.

i still am waging an inner civil war from within myself on whether or not i am worthy enough of certain things. that is perhaps the biggest thing that i have trouble choking down. i am trying to take responsibility for my foolish and down right stupid behavior in my past and the repercussions that followed. but this, however, this issue stems directly from him. his actions continue to haunt me until this day. i cannot help but to wonder until when the day will come to wen i am even free of his ghost, of his memory, of his chains of abuse. the first time i ever stood up to him still mystifies me completely. long story short: my Nana had a brain tumor for which she had surgery to remove. it so happened that the surgery landed on 'his weekend.' (he did the part time custodial thing. at least on court papers that is.) so i called him to let him know that i couldn't come because of my Nana. to no surprise, he flew off in a rage. he screamed at me through the phone so loud that my mom heard him from across the room that i was in. his cursed filled tirade threw sharp daggers at me like, "what has she ever done for you? she's not even related to you and you want to be there for her when its my god damned weekend?!" yeah, it was so not cool. i was so taken back by his reaction to my not being able to come to his house for the weekend, that i mustered up the courage to tell him that i just would not be coming anymore, period. if i thought the Nana screaming diatribe was bad, boy was i ever sorely mistaken. what followed was nothing short of pure hatred. venom. anger. rage. abhorrence. i started crying on the phone because he broke me; i couldn't take it anymore and had to give the phone to my mama. she promptly hung up on his ass. i remember curling up into a ball in her lap sobbing once more for the daddy i didn't have.

what i will never understand is what happened back before i was a teenager and did do the stupid and irresponsible things that i did. how can a man loathe his own child? a child, for pete's sake. an innocent, snaggle toothed, pig tail wearing child who loved playing on the slip 'n slide during the hot summers. how does a man do that? i doubt i will ever discover that answer. i love my damn dogs more than that sonofabitch ever loved me. how sad is that, i ask you. i can only hope that he loved his other daughter more than me. i know he pretty much thought his son could walk on water. my dad's mother thought the same of him. i would be lying to you if i said that i did not ponder about his other daughter. i often wonder if she has realized what type of mother she had. now that she is a mother herself, i wonder if she gets it. her own mom told her to not come home for christmas because she got along better with my dad when she wasn't there. and then they died. that christmas. i wonder how that makes her feel. but she and i are oil and water, even though it used to not be that way. we were never close exactly but we tolerated each other alright. before they died she did share some things with me on his antics and baffling behavior towards her, to show me it wasn't just me whom he hated. i had/have mixed feelings on that. but what i find puzzling is her current frame of thinking that they were excellent parents. like that because they both died, it excuses their different types of abuse. nothing pardons that, not even their deaths.


i do wish her well, because i do still care. i don't want to care but i can't help it. i loved her at one point in time. and now as an adult i have come to find that you just simply cannot erase love or hate. you can break the cycle, but you cannot forget it.

reverberating anxiety.

tonight C and i watched the latest episode of house off of our DVR. house's dad died; cuddy drugs him; wilson kidnaps him per his mother's request for house to give his dad's eulogy at the funeral. house's antics make no attempts whatever to hide his disdain towards his dad. he goes on to say that perhaps if his dad had been a better man, that he, himself, would be a better man as well. he then proceeds to steal dna off his dad in the casket to prove to wilson that this man is not his biological father. upon the dna results (which were miraculously speedy), he tells wilson the news; that this man isn't his biological father, that he'd been correct at figuring out, at twelve years old. the short of the long is, house turns out to be upset that even after his dna discovery, that his feelings for this man still haven't changed. he then looks at wilson and says, "my dad is dead."
i recognized that sentence. i empathized with the emotions, even though i am well aware that it is merely an actor portraying a role in a tv series. but damn, that still struck a chord within me. if you'd told me this time last year that these peoples' deaths would have effected me to this point, i'd have asked what you were smoking. i never ever thought that any feelings i had towards this man, would be half as deep as they ran.
i know others who suffered WAY worse abuse at the hands of their fathers. in comparison... you just can't compare the damages sustained to me versus the damages sustained to them. others can still feel the sting of a slap or hit, some can hear the footsteps at night,...i can still feel that anxiety of wondering if my heart could handle the sheer amount of fear itself, coursing through my veins like poison. the screams still make me flinch. he was my monster in the dark. he was literally a son of a bitch. to the letter. he may have provided for most of his children, but facts are, that he was NOT a good man. and damn sure NOT a good father to me. i am unsure if i can ever be fully healed from the scars he bequeathed to me... as i never was without any scars, so what would i know of healing? all i can do, i think, is go on. talk about the pain, write my crappy little poems, and my shotty art,...just to get it out. and buddha help me, if i am fortunate enough to have a legacy, it is my duty as a human being, as a living, breathing, loving soul... to break that cycle of abuse, no matter how big or small.