I put a poem on this website a few days ago. It’s called My Father Pain and I hate it. I didn’t sit on it long enough before pushing it on the world. I couldn’t sit on it. I didn’t want to sit on it. I wanted it to be anyone’s problem but mine.
I wrote it, toyed with it, and published in a few hours.
It’s about my father who says he’s stoic because he doesn’t know what the word means. He has no positive emotions to show, but god damn does he show the negative ones. His face gets tight around the mouth and he’ll talk without opening his mouth much to keep it that way. He shows that he’s angry at you. He shows that he doesn’t care about you unless you’re living in a way he approves.
My father gives no shit about my mental health.
He thinks it’s fixed with pills that he too often has to pay for.
He doesn’t understand that I am in pain and that it’s a pain that prevents me from doing things that are normal for him.
Or maybe he does and just doesn’t give a shit.
He does find ways to be mean and I wonder if he wanted children. Catholic. He was a guy who provided our family a way to eat and be safe. He never talked. He refused to play any games. When he took interest in something I did it was sports and not intelligence or art.
He coached baseball one year and was clearly more forgiving and nice to the other children.
People, adults, said things.
He said he had to be harder on me so he didn’t look like he was playing favorites.
I don’t think I believe that.
He’s always nicer to strangers.
I don’t think he loves me or my sister. I don’t think he wanted us. I don’t think he cared about us.
I remember him visiting me in the mental hospital.
He told me a story about what he saw when he went to heaven.
He says he went to heaven when he died during emergency surgery for a few minutes.
This, of course, is bullshit.
Even within his religious beliefs it’s bullshit.
You don’t die and go to heaven.
You die and wait.
Sorry. Sidetracked.
He told me he talked to his father. His father said that my father had to go back because his grandson was in trouble. My father told me he assumed it was my cousin, but now he knew it was me.
My cousin had problems, but was self-sufficient.
I was medicated to a level that my pharmacist warned my parents about and had just got kicked out of college.
There was nothing stable or regular going on with me.
Clearly in my father’s delusion I was the one in trouble.
He didn’t want to see it.
Because he actively tries not to care and I don’t think he does care. I think he feels it was his duty to care for me while I was in the hospital after my second attempt that needed medical attention.
Second.
I hate this.
He has never been proud of me.
He has been openly upset and ashamed of me.
He has told me how shitty I am.
He doesn’t love me.
The poem is about if he ever did and what did I put him through to make that stop.
I know in my head that I didn’t do anything.
I know in my head none of this is my fault.
I know in my marrow that I am unlovable and that I ruin lives of anyone in proximity of me.
So what I know in my head doesn’t fucking matter.
Intermittent Transmission