I wrote this awhile back. I reread it today to feel the anger coming from my child self. It made me think about the parents who claim corporal punishment to be okay, “because that’s what my parents did and I turned out okay.”
But did they?
It’s not okay to “spank” a child,
Or to minimize the anger.
One day they’ll grow up —
And some of us will speak.
Teach them art instead.
Teach them how to express themselves.
Teach them how to grow a seed into a plant.
And how to uproot a tree.
Raised in violence — can you blame me for going mad? My mother was giving Jesus a blow down in the bathroom while my father gave me bruises. She’d later give the poster child of corporal punishment an ice-pack for her visible wounds. And when I wrote about this in my diary — my father threaten to sue the fools who promised to keep my writings safe. When I spat in his face, I did it for all the times she’d only thought about it. Disrespectful was all I’d ever witnessed — leading by example was not a parenting strategy utilised. How can she get angry when the Bible proclaimed the same message of abuse? Sparing the rod was not an option for her spoiled children, punished for the financial stability my daddy told me I wanted. “Poverty is one hell of a life,” the devil proclaimed with pride pouring out of his mouth like word vomit. Living among demons, I did not understand. Boys will be boys — and he was simply protecting me from the slut object I owned called a vagina. Life in a mansion was better, right?
I held in my secrets only to spill another’s tea. Because wasn’t personal invasion: normal, protective, rewarded? I got whacked for the rumours the tiny tattle-tales told. Dearest dad told me that I was a poor historian as if his perspective was perfect; “I’d only learn when I grew-up” he’d say. Grown I am, and I still think the same. He’d tell me that this was simply the genome of my mother. He told me that delusional thinking got me in trouble. Gaslit and set on fire — can you blame me for being confused? He told me I had problems with my executive functioning. He told me that I couldn’t control my cognition. He’d say I was impulsive as if I wasn’t ten years old. Only when I began studying the brain did I realise he didn’t know anything anyways. Telling me I can’t mind-read as if I believed I was psychic; he projected pathological medical jargon to distract us from his narcissist coping strategies. The selfishness that pulled him off the streets ruined his offspring. I was raised in the ghetto of Greenville — where the grass seems like it is constantly chromatic. I grew up near back roads that twisted and turned next to tiny streams. I grew up inside five private schools all lined up in a row. When I grew up, I was suppose to be who my daddy says so.
My mother preached like a mythological siren; both seductive and annoying. Nags fell like dripping water. Saliva dropped like a cascade in an ocean of worry. Claiming to be codependent she hid her covert self-indulgence. She prayed to the kingdoms in heaven for dreams and visions of righteousness; because, she was the saint of the family. Reminding us all that this was not her bloodline. When she thought there was a bear on the trail — she pushed me onto the path as she hid behind a tree. It reminded me of the times when she quietly cheered from the bleachers in the coliseum. It was I that battled as a immature gladiator to the death with her former husband. She claimed emotional abuse after the divorce as if I was not violated. Towering over top of my teenage female body, his bad-karma could not weight me down as he pinned me against the wall. “Slap me again!” I would scream as my feet dangled. There was no such thing as weakness in her daughters. She laboured to deliver them with her generational spell. They said all the good parents protect like this — as they polished their halos. Who was I? Just somebody that was going to burn in hell. Tell something to a child and they’ll believe anything. Thank god I am grown.
I held in my secrets only to spill another’s tea. Because wasn’t personal invasion: normal, protective, rewarded?