Lessons My Son Taught My Father About Loving Me

I, forgot where I was.

Oh yeah, Jacob! I told you to rinse the dishes before you put them in the fucking sink! Now get over here so I can teach you a lesson you'll never forget!

Pensive and with bruised knuckles,

I thought back to a memory deleted,

The proof remains in the rooms littered with holes in the walls,

Or the welts on my son's ribs,

Black eyes,

Bruises,

Bloody noses,

A resurfacing montage of joyful memories emerge like the fragments of chipped teeth gnawing on the sinews of bones of forgotten potentials of past lives of what was it again?

Futures we coveted and later neglected to pursue out of degraded self-esteem,

Emergent properties of the trauma of abuse,

I glanced ever upward at the towering man who gave me the welts on my ribs,

A giant from myth,

My idol and tormentor but always the teacher,

Son? Please don't, I love you so, don't you love me so, dad?

He says, "I do dad, but as my father has done unto you, I shall do unto him, you shall do unto me, I shall do unto his, ad infinitum",

I glanced ever downward at the cowering rabbit shaking with timidity,

Where once I was the rabbit now I am the giant, as he will be and as I once was,

Dad? Please know, I love you so, don't you know?

He says "Son? Please don't, is this your gift to your grandson? An heirloom of trauma passed down from generation to generation?"

The giant brought down a thundering fist into my gut,

Heaving, heaving, heaving

I placed a rose on your coffin, dad,

Don't you know I loved you so?

I'll honor you through the reenactment of the greatest gift you gave me,

The manifestation of trauma played out in the scenes of the greatest story ever told about the fucking dishes in the sink,

He'll get to know you through me, I promise,

This is the true reinvention of the wheel,

A cycle of defeat with no end or beginning or middle or end or beginning,

My son's gift to his son, my father's gift to me, my gift to my son his gift to my father's gift to my grandsons gift to my father's sons grandsons gift to me to mine to,

Son? Oh my God, I didn't mean it, I'm so sorry please forgive me, how did we get here? I'm just a victim like you, you have to understand I don't know how this happened, I love you dad!

The giant looked down at me with watering eyes,

I do love you son,

Love you I do,

Do I love you son,

I do,

Pensive, and with a welted stomach,

I thought back to when my son's son taught his son the greatest lesson about the fucking dishes,

The one I passed down,

Which was passed down to me,

This is what true love looks like,

Fists flying into jaws at 2am bringing the cloudy stench of whisky with it,

I love you, son

Where were we?

Oh yeah, come here Jacob, let me show you what true love looks like,

You'll remember it forever.