Pains of a Daughter

It's a sad day when you have to admit to yourself that a home, is not a home anymore. When you can't remember when it ever felt like one. This revelation can take you away from the prison you're in, and make you wonder how you ever ended up inside of it in the first place. I never really knew why he liked to stay with her, it was always something of a mystery in my mind. I think it was a mystery for him, too. But the fact that he had already had one once over, this time around being his second chance - and if, in his words, they divorced then - he'd never find anyone else again. That he would live the rest of his life for him. This was his one chance in his mind. I wish he could get out of it.

She liked to yell a lot. It came from her childhood of never being heard at all, or never even getting a chance to speak when she wanted to; when she had something to say, when words were fighting and scratching their way behind her teeth, but she had no freedom to say anything. Not without consequence.

But this is some thirty years later.

Or maybe the abuse just kept on going through each lover she would find. From the father that wasn't much of a father, to the lovers that weren't much of lovers. And then she found my father, again, after twenty-some years. Something of high school sweethearts, but not really sweethearts. Finding that their pasts intertwined in some small way, to the point that they wanted their futures combined together. Though four times over, she left, or they left her. She kept believing my father would eventually do the same, but she would inevitably become more and more complicated.

Instead of turning a blind eye, he would dive straight into the middle of the mess, the yelling and conflict, anxiety and depression, molded into a disgusting monster; terrifying, and abrupt in daily life. Always there, but you never know when its going to pounce, to turn any happy moment into a twisted nightmare. When reality becomes something you wish to escape - but its never that easy, is it?

He tried and tried, and still tried again. No matter how many visits, no matter how many outbursts, no matter how many alcoholic binges, no matter how many declarations to stay away from the drink, no matter how many times she'd go right back to it - she could never get away because she never allowed herself to.

She can admit every single time that she is imperfect like everybody else, that she cannot help it. But that is just the sort of woven guilt that she likes to weave. You get so far into the argument that you haven't a clue what is right or wrong anymore, because of all the bullshit spinning in the air. You have no idea if you were ever on the right side at all, and somehow begin to believe that your smile was the cause of all the destruction. That your compliment was your way of saying she was already insecure. That doing your part is your fault because no one else will stand up to do their own.

It's always your fault, never hers.

She can admit it time and time again, but theirs no truth in her plea.

She could confess, but she'll never be convicted.

There's been a confessions, but she'll never be arraigned.

This prison I escaped through bars and cement, where he lies still - there is nothing I can do to save him.