the refuse
i suppose in every life there are only so many stories. even in many-storied lives, there is a finite number.
my life is not many-storied and mostly i like it that way. but it means i tend to repeat myself a lot, revisiting the same territory, unpicking and reexamining the stitches.
i spent a lot of years being afraid of my dad. it was a subtle, deep fear, like a sound so low it manifests as vibration rather than something you hear. the underscore for my movie of the week. it took me years—well into my twenties—before i realised that one of the legacies he left me with was manifested every day at a particular time. now i can't remember if he used to get home from work at 4 or 5, but for years after i'd left home, i would be anxious as that time of the day approached. everything had to be tidy when he came home, had to be quiet. had to.
my dad had big hands. he wasn't an especially tall man but he was well-muscled, broad shouldered, powerful. i think until i was about 7 or 8 he could lift me up into the air with (me hanging on to) his thumbs. i remember the paralysing fear of him slamming one of those hands down in anger. i suppose i should be thankful that he never actually hit me, not really. but then i think that maybe it would've been better if he had. mum would have left him much sooner and we might have been saved a few years of living with an emotionally abusive alcoholic with ptsd. it might have been easier for her to stop blaming herself.
wherever we lived, he kept a large knife in a sheath by the bed. for all i know, he still does. one night, in the grip of a flashback, he tried to kill my mother.
this is something i only learned recently, something she's only been recently able to admit to herself. this is what i mean by legacy. they've been divorced almost as long as they were married and there are still these poison pockets to uncover. there are things you simply cannot escape. no matter that i don't share his genetic code, he is a part of me, a part i cannot excise or unravel. it lives in me. / you live in me. malignant. this haunting.
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This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. If you feel inclined, comment there.
my life is not many-storied and mostly i like it that way. but it means i tend to repeat myself a lot, revisiting the same territory, unpicking and reexamining the stitches.
i spent a lot of years being afraid of my dad. it was a subtle, deep fear, like a sound so low it manifests as vibration rather than something you hear. the underscore for my movie of the week. it took me years—well into my twenties—before i realised that one of the legacies he left me with was manifested every day at a particular time. now i can't remember if he used to get home from work at 4 or 5, but for years after i'd left home, i would be anxious as that time of the day approached. everything had to be tidy when he came home, had to be quiet. had to.
my dad had big hands. he wasn't an especially tall man but he was well-muscled, broad shouldered, powerful. i think until i was about 7 or 8 he could lift me up into the air with (me hanging on to) his thumbs. i remember the paralysing fear of him slamming one of those hands down in anger. i suppose i should be thankful that he never actually hit me, not really. but then i think that maybe it would've been better if he had. mum would have left him much sooner and we might have been saved a few years of living with an emotionally abusive alcoholic with ptsd. it might have been easier for her to stop blaming herself.
wherever we lived, he kept a large knife in a sheath by the bed. for all i know, he still does. one night, in the grip of a flashback, he tried to kill my mother.
this is something i only learned recently, something she's only been recently able to admit to herself. this is what i mean by legacy. they've been divorced almost as long as they were married and there are still these poison pockets to uncover. there are things you simply cannot escape. no matter that i don't share his genetic code, he is a part of me, a part i cannot excise or unravel. it lives in me. / you live in me. malignant. this haunting.
--
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. If you feel inclined, comment there.