the tables turn

"Thanks for helping me out with my car again, Dad."

"Oh, it's always a pleasure. As long as I can help."

"Yes, well, you've been there for me plenty of times. And I just want to say something to you, because I've never actually said it, but... I forgive you."

"You didn't have to say that."

"Yes I did. I can't live another minute without getting that off of my chest."

"Thank you. I love you son. And I think about all the hurt and pain I caused you, your brothers, your sister, your mother... A day doesn't go by when I don't think about it."

He then proceeded to tell me how God's good graces have helped him overcome his own problems. He didn't take credit for it once. He attributed it all to God.

That's amazing to me. Most people would be patting themselves on the back, proud that they have "cured" themselves.

My father knows he is nothing without God in his life. Of course, he had God in his life back then, but maybe he was fooling himself, and maybe that was God's way of showing him that he was fooling himself.

I cried on the drive back to the backyard party, where I escaped into the haze of alcohol, drugs and pretty young girls sitting in the hot tub sipping margaritas as me and my bandmates collected accolades for our set earlier in the day.

The tears were gone, and the pain was momentarily sated, but when I got home I crashed hard and I fell down on my face in the living room. My cat Otis sat down beside me and pawed my hair as if he were petting me.


*/*


Forgiveness is an exhausting task. I don't think I have it in me to do any more forgiving for a while. I feel like I have been dragged across the hot Mojave desert sands.

There is always someone else to forgive. I could sit here all day and list, one by one, every grievance that was ever committed against me, but I won't. I can't.

It's too hard.

I keep thinking that love will rescue me or save me from despair, but all too often it does the opposite: it throws me straight into the depths of depression and self-pity.

Maybe I don't need a muse, or a lover. Maybe I need me. Maybe I need to spend less time on helping others achieve their goals and more time on making myself happy.

Is it already time for me to be selfish again?


*/*


A woman sells her preteen daughter into prostitution to pay for her longtime speed habit.

If this woman was someone you knew, or someone you were related to-- would you forgive it? Would you understand it?

I have had to understand and forgive more than I ever imagined. Maybe that's why I had a hard time forgiving my father-- I feel like I've forgiven the world so many other things, and that there is more to forgive coming up. I needed one thing to hold onto, one thing to not forgive because then I would feel that I had some sort of control over my life.

Now that I have forgiven him, there is a void. I am empty. My unwillingness to be compassionate was the core of my being. Now I have nothing inside of me to make up for the loss.

Even though the void was filled by hate and rage, it was still filled. Now that the emptiness of existence is again upon me, I don't know where to turn.

I think it would be healthy-- even wise-- to be a jerk for a while, so that way people will have to forgive me. Turn the tables, so to speak. Let the people around me feel what it is like to love a complete asshole.

Problem is, the people around me are weak, and they will not forgive me. So I guess I am on my own again, like I was when I was 16, like I was when I was 23 and starting to write the novel that I am finishing.

I cannot expect to be forgiven for the sins I commit: the jealousy, the envy, the pride, the lust, the greed, the wrath... No one is ever going to do for me what I have done for them. And I'm OK with that, because I realize now why they cannot forgive: because it is simply too hard of a thing to do.

I don't feel any better for doing it, so let me crawl off to a dark place, like a wounded cat, and nurse my wounds.


*/*


I almost did not wake this morning
I wanted to stay in my comfortable coffin
sheets pulled over me like a funeral veil
I was opposed to greeting the light
It made me want to vomit and shake my fists
in defiance of the natural order of things
which always descends into chaos
no matter what

If I'd elected to stay in bed
I would not have ever left the apartment
I would've let myself emaciate into nothing
because it would be preferable to living
In This World That Makes Me Crazy
I am lucid-eyed and sane
watching madmen make claims
and victims lay blame

I am waiting for the critical mass
the peak moment when I can run
and forget the physical pain
the mental anguish
outrunning the ghosts and demons
of my past incarnations
for slightly longer

Someday the person that you know me as
will disappear
and a new personality will arise
out of the ashes of the old
and create movements so bold
that there will be no way for anyone
to hold their ground
once they discover what I have found
to be true:
You are not me and I am not
You