PROBLEMS

i originally posted this on my Xanga, but the way i typed it (i tend to type my personal things that have me emotionally moved in some way very... elloquently i think) it felt like a short narrative story. so, here it is. comment. discuss.

this is about how my day began today.

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You probably don't know me. But if you do, that's fine too.

I'm having a shit day really.

I woke up to hear my mom crying and wailing in the kitchen, right beyond the curtain into my bedroom.

On my days off, I usually try to sleep in. So needless to say that this morning, I woke up quite agitated.

At first it didn't register in my sleep addled brain what was going on. All I heard was crying and wailing. Of my mother on the other side of that curtain.

When sudden realization hit me true, I lay there in my bed, alone, for my Love had gotten up early. Gone to re-take a final exam for some science class again. But there I lay, alone, and suddenly very afraid of waking up this morning.

At first, I thought someone had died. After that, I thought it must have been my grandmother. Then I panicked further, and thought about my aunt, who isn't in the greatest health. But, like a dutiful child I climbed out of bed, forcing my stiff limbs to stretch and pull, to grab some pants and slip them on.

I trudged out into the kitchen, and looked at my mom, scratching my head sleepily. She did not have the phone. It was back in my bedroom, on the hook, where it had been all night. Then, I looked from my mother to the living room, to my father. What was he doing home?

Why was he shouting about things that didn't matter to me?

I looked back to my mother again, and she looked up at me, and she said through her anguish "Your father quit his job."

My previous panic of losing loved ones was quickly replaced with rage.

How could he do this! How could he do this AGAIN! was what my mind kept screaming, but I bit my tongue, clenched my fist, and fought hard not to charge and swing at him. I knew it would do me no good to be escorted into the back of a police car today.

Apparently, he had shouted at my mom. Shouted about how horrible his job was, how much he hated it. Yet for the last six years he's declared he loved it, that it was what he liked to do.

The liar. He never could be trusted. I always knew that. I always knew my father was a liar. A lying cheating backstabbing bastard. So why was it such a shock to me to hear what he had done?

He had made a scene. He had told them off. The kind people that gave him a job when no one else would. The kind man who gave him time off with pay when his son was in the hospital those few years ago. The kind man's wife who, in our times of need, was more than happy to help us out with anything we might have ever needed or wanted.

For me, in that moment, I felt 15 years old again. My rage was laced with the fear of losing my home, one more time. Of being tossed out on the street with my mother, my sister, and my Love. The sinking feeling in my gut told me to leave the room. It told me to keep my mouth shut. But I couldn't. I wouldn't be silent. Not this time. Not like I was back then.

"You sonuvabitch!" I had shouted, so sleepy and angry that my old southern drawl from my childhood days returning in my voice. "You fuckin' asshole!" I had screamed at his retreating back. "How could you do this to us! Yer family! How could you do it again!"

He did not answer me. He carried an arm load of uniform shirts out the front door, giving himself the task of returning them from whence they came. He left. He stayed gone for hours it felt like.

After a lengthy discussion with my mom, who had calmed down and her fear and shock replaced with anger and rage, I looked at the clock. It was only just past 9:37AM in the morning.

And still, now, at 6:03PM, I hold no more love, no more respect, for the man who calls himself my father.

Now, I have no other emotion in me towards that man who had already enstranged himself to me years ago, before the first time he had done something like this. What little care I had for the man, that was slowly starting to grow, has been killed in a matter of a few heartbeats shortly after waking this morning.

I hate him. And now that I think about how that sounds when I say it out loud, it feels so natural, so perfect to me.

I hate him.

And for now, my mind is set in the idea that I possibly always will.