Deranged from Pain

At a young age, I learned to cry with style: silently, with soft tears rolling down my cheeks after swelling gradually in my eyes. No smears or streaks. Just water with a tinge of salt, and boundless pain. When I started crying in front of him, it felt all too familiar. Like how I would cry when I’d be called out of class to find that he had packed the car again and waited for me to beg him to stay. Like how I would cry when he’d show me his black and blue thighs and swollen rib cage. Like how I would cry late at night when I could hear my mother’s scurrying footsteps and piercing cries, followed by loud thuds on the wooden floor, and the sobs of my oldest brother as he watched. Like how I would cry when he’d hand me that rattling yellow bottle and tenderly ask me to hide them, for if I couldn’t keep them safe, he may not live—or so he said.

However, as familiar as my tears felt, I knew much had changed. I was older, wiser. Less naïve and more aware. Less susceptible to his manipulation and spiritually stronger than his overbearing personality.

The skin on my inner thighs pinched together as I squeezed my crossed legs tighter. I was nervous.

His voice was growing louder and sterner.

“Why did you come here?” he asked, leaning up against his living room window. His jaw was clenched and his eyes seemed black and hollow. The comfort of my spirit seemed to disappear at the sight of him.

“It’s Father’s Day tomorrow. I wanted to see you.” I struggled to readjust my crossed legs as they stuck together from my clenched position.

“How do I know you didn’t come to record me?” My heart sank.

Here it comes.

I snatched my phone up from the foot rest I was sitting on and felt the gentle itch of tears rushing down my cheeks.

“You watched me turn it off,” I cried, gasping for words. I stood abruptly, and walked towards the door, but he shifted, blocking my path. I peered up at him, catching whiff of something rich and sweet. Listerine? I thought, remembering what he would respond when I would crawl into his arms and ask innocently why his breath smelt funny.

For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t say another word. That he would let me leave or maybe even apologize for thinking something this insane.

I thought.

“How do I know you don’t have a bug on your clothes?”

I laughed. A soft, breathy laugh. Then I sobbed. Or screamed. Maybe both at the same time. I even remember ripping the sleeve from my shoulder, far enough until it hit the border of my bra. Then came my shorts. I forced them up, revealing my entire thigh. Finally, my sandal. I bent it and rotated it and threw it into his chest. Before I could begin to process, my once clenched and anxious legs were rushing me back to the door I had entered just minutes before. Soon I could feel the June heat against my cheeks and the sun blinding my wet eyes. I fidgeted with my keys, my fingers shaking violently until I found the one I needed. I jumped into my over-heated car, catching a glimpse of him walking toward me in my rearview mirror. My barefoot slammed against the gas and my engine roared, and for the first time in my life I felt fear for the man I am biologically programmed to call father.

I felt fear for the man who used to paint mine and my sister’s nails. For the man who always let me stay up past bed time and watch late night comedy with him. For the man who always bought at least one gallon of rocky road ice cream for me even though my four other siblings only ate sherbet. For the man who wiped away my childish tears and bandaged my skinned knees. For the man who spun me around and threw me in pools and delivered me when I was born.

Where was this man?

Where was my whole world?

And is there a chance I can find him again in the celestial light of another?