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narcissism

i still think i’m one of the world’s greatest poets at least of my time

Devilish

I used to want to be honorable: not steal, not lie, not be late, but no more. I don’t follow their rules anymore, none of them. I stole 100$ or more of groceries from Giant Bird yesterday, why? Because I paid 100$ or more for my oil change at Valvoline, and I needed to make up for it. This is what I did: I planned to pay. I brought my own bags. I filled them up. I pushed my cart, with my full bags, to the cash out lanes, but alas, there was no one to ring my shit up. Some were ringing themselves up, (definitely stealing 1/3 items), and no one was watching, and also, the way they set the store up, you come out from produce at the wrong end, and have to turn back. Am I turning back? Hell naw. I’m not making no U-turns for the patriarchal capitalistic Big Bird, and I just walked the fuck out. The fuck you gonna do, though. Nothing, that’s what I thought. Because you’re watching the black people with the hawk eye, and ignoring me, and I’m that white bitch who steal everything in a second, buh bye. I did, and I’m proud of it, facts. I don’t owe Big Bird nothing. They aint done shit for their people, farmers or shoppers, and fuck em. Spending all that money on air conditioning to air condition your meat, let me help you. I’ll take it off your hands. Shouldn’t trust any white people, that’s on you.

Today, I loved Will. We sang, exercised, took walks outside in the nature that money can buy, and ate meals and snacks. Every day, it’s his penis, in the bath, in the shorts, on the billboard: penis penis penis. Like a mother, I want him to get it, he deserves to get it for himself. But he doesn’t like using his hands, and never will. Will never will.
I think of “the World According to Garp,” (prototypical fate driving things), and also Jenny and Forest. Was she wrong to do all that? I never thought so. But then I heard people capping on her, like she’s your basic predator. White women prey on, pray on, anyone with need. I’d never do that to Will, but sometimes I think about climbing onto his bed, because it’s big, and we’re both getting sleepy, and I think, could we cuddle. Would he go to sleep if I spooned him? Does he realize I’m old af? Does he understand his own age? (no). And I think of that novel: Shame, by Shalamon Rushdie. Did you ever read it? If you read the title, how did you resist? I needed that book. The main character, a real weirdo, falling in love with the autistic daughter, the intellectually disabled one, in fact, he did love her. But he should’ve left her tf alone, based on what happened. He married her, yes, but that night, or some time later, an evil spirit (her) whipped through the farm and the barn, ripping the heads off all the chickens, dozens or hundreds of them. When he saw the chickens, he knew she’d be back for him. What did he do so wrong other than loving her? Examine your own shame, if you need to know.

Love, Sex, Home.

last night, I turned out a text message from James from 1993. Talking about how bad he needed sex. The message reached me in 2026 where I could imagine this desire. I wanted it too. I wandered back to the old neighborhood and ride up to the family house. I’ve done this before in dreams quite a few times. There’s always a lot of people around, but this time there was also a lot of James friends and it was a party house. When he approached me, I was horrified by his haircut. It looks like a punishment haircut. If you didn’t work with black kids before you don’t know what this is, but this is when the buzzer makes you look bad. The clippers just haphazard lead cuts off chunks and leaves a crazy hairline. He still had the chunks of hair all over him. So what the fuck happened to your hair? He shrugged. Later on, I noticed that he was wearing ripped up jeans on top of black lace tights. I said, you know you’re not the only black kid who likes heavy metal. We went up to his bed, past all the friends, and maybe a girlfriend or two, and I was trying to get right to it. But the bed was like these slippery stack of mattresses in a roommate popped out from under them. Like an old white guy in his 40s. It wasn’t time for bed yet they said, but I told him you need to go right back under there. I told people to stop coming in. He tasted me and considered like, not bad! I could smell it too, a little metallic. I gave him a passionate kiss, but he backed off. He gave me a medicinal lip ointment, telling me this will heal your cold sores. He asked me, did you tell anyone else? I was embarrassed of the cold sores, but also like, fine. We don’t need to kiss. We are in the bed and he asked me, can you take it from the back? I said I really don’t know, laughing. It’s been a minute. We didn’t fully get to it only for like 30 seconds, which is probably how long it actually lasted when we were 14. It didn’t hurt. But it was interrupted, and I had to move on. I got mad about that and all the friends and girlfriends being around bc they wouldn’t leave us alone. I wondered, what if what he really wants is for me to hang out with his friends? I didn’t want to. I left. I thought about how different I was since I left with so much confidence 100% sure it could be anything I was planning to be like famous rockstar, poet, person who starts a school, teach teaching sounded easy. 30 years later, I could admit that it beat me. I sent him an angry text saying, I thought you wanted the sex!

So I was gonna walk home because I only lived two blocks away. But the scene changed into New York. Someone called, Steph! Steph! And it was Jason. He was riding like a full body board because he was a fully dead looking human. Like a prone wheel wheelchair/skateboard. He barely stopped to talk and I didn’t want him to. Dark bruises over a skeletal frame. From a few yards back, I thought oh my God that’s Jason and I was excited, but by the time he rolled by, I didn’t try to stop him. He had these bandages all around his waist, and I could see the wound weeping through it. On his body board, he was rolling under cars and everything like through the traffic.

The rest of the dreams I spent trying to get home. The landscape varied between Minneapolis and New York. I seem to be getting farther and farther from the city center whereas I thought my home was only a couple blocks away. Home receded from me and the landscape grew. I asked people I came across, bro do you know where there’s even a subway station? Do you know how to get to Brooklyn? I even heard these two girls talking about Bedford Stevenson and I was like yeah yeah so do you know how to get back there? But they were just posers and tourists and they had no idea. I was so tired and at some point realized I didn’t even have a phone. Didn’t see any cabs passing by. Really in the middle of nowhere. Then I wandered up into these apartments. There’s a lot of people living there and they all had big bedrooms, but the building was old and unlevered and had strange features like a ring of three bricks running around the perimeter of each room and apartment. I got into the school elevator that was like carved out with copper and not in any decidable cubicle shape. It was like a wonky pentagram shape with uneven line segments, and kind of rounded out. It glowed it was beautiful. I wanted to take a picture. I pass through libraries and ceremonies and I kept asking everyone how to get back to the street and how to get back home.

Then I had two repeat her dreams, although the whole thing is sort of a repeat with development. I had the missing suitcase dream where I’ve lost luggage on my travels and I go back to the station and I’m asking about it but this time I looked up and I saw my big old black suitcase in the storage and I was begging this lady to let me get it down, but she wouldn’t help me.

Then I had the dream where I missed my flight or bus because it doesn’t wait for me except this time I made it by running as fast as I can the minute they say run, it’s here, (even though a bunch of other people are doing the same thing and forming a messy line, and abandoning all my luggage. What the fuck I’m gonna wear when I get there? at least I didn’t lose money on the ticket this time.

Making Walk With Will

Will and I go on walks when I work with him. The whole time I worked with him are almost all of it, will holds my hand. I tried to use the opportunity, every opportunity, for communication practice, and I realized on the walks, about Will’s hands. His hand is alive in my hand. It’s like no hand holding I’ve ever had. The hand talks to me. I try to let him make all the decisions about how far we walked, when and where we turn around and go back. Before Will finds the words, his hand starts telling me. His hands are soft and sensitive and pale, like an aristocrat Will looks like an aristocrat, happily, chubby, a hot tea, Italian face, blonde hair and nice blue eyes. His heart shaped face is now emphasized with a second chin because his meds making him fat. That’s one of the reasons I have instructions to take him on walks. Honestly, he takes me on the walks. I have leader house disease, which means recurrent plantar fibroma growth, and I’ve had two surgeries and I still I’m trying to get the scar tissue under control. My walking is very off-balance and uneven. But I discovered that will is the same off balance that I am, his inside foot flops down hard and the outside foot lingers too long in the air. Every time I shower, I work on shaving down the calluses on my feet so that I can live out my life without wheelchair stuff. Will also has a pretty big callus on his outside foot on his heel. Since I’ve become a debridement expert, I wish I could offer to shave it down. Who knows why we both slam down on the inside foot and avoid the outside foot. I noticed that when we get into a rhythm, it’s like no one could beat us in the three legged race. Leaning on each other, we can get into a walk-in groove. Sometimes there’s no groove and he’s dragging me along or I’m limping pathetically to keep up with him. I say a few things in my normal voice to him on these walks things I wouldn’t say in front of his family. I try not to say too much or he will get confused and upset. The risk is that I make too many references at once. But I told him about my foot and I thanked him for helping me walk. To say where we’re getting into our three legged groove, and as usual, I was focusing all my attention on trying to make my feet walk the same, and I noticed that between our two hands, there was a little bit of pressure that was almost like a crutch where we were pushing off each other for our weaker points of our step. Her hands really talk to each other and here they are forming a crutch that helps us speed up, rather than being left behind, which is always my fear. I mean, I feel like I have been left behind a lot. Or, I feel like people would leave me behind. I’m slower than most people realize. Besides, holding hands the thing I do the most with well that I’ve ever done with anyone is eye contact. If you didn’t realize that he’s considered low functioning autistic so none of the interactions really follow normal social rules, including eye contact. Sometimes we stare at each other, and I do a little low-key rocking that imitates his rocking, and I almost get lost in his eyes. I think, oh my God, I can see you in there and you can see me. Our ages don’t matter at all because he’s never gonna have a normal relationship and I’m close to 50. I don’t wanna date well, but I can’t help but notice the levels of intimacy available even from just staring into someone’s eyes for a long time. Or finding your rhythm, walking together, linked physically and spiritually. Not mentally. Mentality isn’t everything. Compared to a computer we’re all slow and stupid. The smarter you are the more you put your eggs in the book basket. But there are things to experience that are outside of it, and outside of any prescription, beyond and beneath words. If Will says anything spontaneous, it’s usually a really strange sounding wow, whoa, etc. If he makes a genuine request, it said in a tiny whisper. But when he plays the tapes of conversations, he’s heard it sounds like fast-forward on loud. I like when he rocks, flaps, and reviews conversation tapes, which is how I think of it. Intermittently between the sound of a fast forwarded tape, little phrases come out that let you know what it’s from like, “thank you, well, congratulations, you’re right!” things people sat at the dinner table. I’m nosy sometimes they’re an interesting family. I’m like a fly on the wall. Sometimes they drive me crazy overall I think they’re good people. Of course his mother ruined him and is also the person who loves him the most, and would do anything for him. She spoils the fuck out of him. She made him the head of the family. She’s an aristocratic queen, and she made him the prince and also the baby, forever. I love Will. I won’t even put it in any type of category. I’ve never had such a moving hand holding experience where every little movement of the fingers was so important. Sometimes I feel like he’s Helen Keller. But he’s not blind. It’s like he’s language blind. It’s like he’s an animal, an elephant or something we don’t understand.

GRACE

Sometime around 2005, I worked with this young (late 20’s) gal named Grace, and I never forgot her. She was light skinned green eyes, with freckles and African-textured hair, and she lived in Queens, with her family who spoke Spanish. We were both assistants, like secretaries and receptionists, at this Zionist shoe company in Manhattan. I got that job through a temp agency and she probably did, too. It was a pretty easy job. Last night I dreamed I had orders to process for them and was trying to remember the formula’s to convert the data and enter it into As400, for logistics. Three numbers, like a fraction with an extra head, then enter enter enter, copy copy copy. They said I was fucking up stuff at the end, but who knows? They found out I disliked them, before I fully found out. About Grace, though, she came and went. Back then, my name was Katy Love. And we were friends. She told me her mom was dying, like now. And she took her mom’s opiate pills, and shared them with me. Then it only took 1 Vicodin to set me in a painless cloud for pleasant data entry tasks. Or walking across the city. Or meeting someone new. She would share with me, from a rolled up tissue in her pocket. Then her mom died, and she turned grayish. One morning maybe a week or month after her mom died, she told me someone introduced her to something “way better.” She was so excited, like she wasn’t daunted by the risks. I was. I never tried h more than once, and that was years before I met Mich.

I don’t think she worked there too much longer, and I started looking for new pills-plug. And I got ripped off. And I stole from people, their medicine closets. And it stopped working, no- that wasn’t till later. There were at least a couple years where I could count on pain killers to cope. And Michelle, my “wife,” was technically my next plug, her proximity to it. And bringing in crack cocaine, which made me feel “normal.”

Next, I met Michelle, another very cool, young gal, only a little younger than me, and she liked me. She was in remission, took suboxone, smoked cigarettes, and didn’t like drinking or weed. She gave me the rest of whatever pills she had bc she said they didn’t do anything for her. The main thing we had in common (besides taking risky, desperate attempts to escape our depression) is writing. She had dozens of lifetime journals and I read them all, while sitting at the reception desk answering the phone, or on the train. They documented her ups and downs, and were evidence that life kept throwing heroin at her, no matter her attempts to run. Her first year in college, her roommate just happened to have needles, etc. in her desk drawer. What are the chances for her? She wrote about all of it, falling in love with straight girls, music, hope, suicidal tendencies, and on top of that, we wrote each other LONG emails. Somewhere I still have a printout of all our emails. She was hyper-verbal. She loved psychology (trying to be a social worker). Michelle was the super subject of my first big blog on google. The whole time, I was still obsessed with another gal/guy- became trans. But the heart has lots of room, especially for grief. Michelle- I really thought she loved me. When she left, she forgot a huge bottle of tramadol that she’d gotten through mail order, Canada or Thailand or something, and I took them all, one handful at a time. And that’s how that summer passed. And I still got straight A’s in graduate school. And I put off for tomorrow what could and should be done today.

Thoughts on “nonverbal” Autism with Intellectual Disability, etc.

I spent 7 hours on the block yesterday, the inpatient residential. The last 3 was with 2 particular young adults, while shadowing the house mother. The majority of the time, “Vlad” was in the kitchen, cooking an assortment of things, for tonight, and tomorrow, to pack for work, at his internship. He used a lot of Lawry’s, that I could smell clearly. I taught him how to defrost meat in the microwave according to weight. In retrospect, I really like that kid. I, too, spend hours in the kitchen, prepping, cooking, and cleaning, and just for my own pleasure and health. I go all out, just for moi. I’m truly BLESSED with good food. I’ll never stop being grateful. I gained a couple more pounds. Like Cardi B say, “this ass is thick like peanut butter/ bitches jelly about it!” hahha facts. Well, you know it aint forever, when you’re eating this good.

So while Vlad was cooking his ribs with Lawrey’s seasoning salt to a crisp, I was in the hang-out area with… Egor. Egor has a ice-queen face, beautiful blond hair, blue eye features, like me (not the bluest eye, thank you very much). Egor was the front-runner for attention for me all day, because he was so over 100% disgusting. The message was clearly: stay THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME! Hahaha. He was almost naked, with loose pants that he rolled up into speedo coverage style. I guess he was mad that he didn’t want to be outside but all the kids had to be outside for the afternoon, for reasons of balance. Can’t be on ipad 24.7. To prove he was mad, and to cope with it, he engaged extra hard (imo- “doing the most”) in stims he knew are disgusting to people based on people yelling, “hands!” and “ew, wtf!” and running away from him. Rectal digging, swipes the genital area, rubs his fingers across his face, creating a thin mustache of poo and dirt, because he’s also pacing on cement or in the dirt, and walking a scooter, so there’s a mustache or extra-smile across his entire face that’s brown. He looks in rapture, to be honest, minus the skin stains. Also bruised deeply on the feet, all elbows, sharp spots, he’s thin. FOR 50 OUT OF EVERY 60 SECONDS, HE EMITS LOOOOUUUUD, MIDRANGE VOCALIZATIONS LIKE “UUUUHHH AHHHH OHHHH UMMHH OOOOEEEE,” etc. It almost drowns out all the other kids in the backyard “play” area. All of the young adults are stimming, but Egor is the dirtiest, scariest, and loudest, so I steady observed him, while keeping my peripheral vision open to potential attacks from the other 10 or so psychopaths aka nonverbal autistic orphans in a group home. I call them psychopaths because they are. Maybe sociopath is better. In a few words: the “relationship” you make with them is based upon the creation of a safe-script landscape that acts like a bridge. Don’t trust them with a single atom-level thing, and definitely don’t look to them for affection. They are demon children, and I relate to them.

So Vlad was cooking in the other room, and Igor is sitting happily and much more cleanly (the house mother helped him shower) in the Tv room, everything’s pretty clean (she’s a good house mother, and talkative, which helps me). She makes a frozen pizza with freezer french fries for dinner, but not till after Vlad done cooking food that’ll last him the next 24 hours. He’s responsible. But the whole time he’s cooking, Igor is moaning and emitting mid-range, VERY LOUD vocalizations (not approximating words) while engaging in a whirlwind of bathroom-genital-1 year old sensory development type behaviors.
It’s Igor’s volume that annoys Vlad. For 45 minutes, Igor yelled expletives against Vlad and named all the specific violent things he would do to get him to shut the fuck up, including hang him, nail him down, shoot him in the face, hit him with a 2x4. He called him a faggot, cunt, bitch, nigger, (many times- obviously one of his favorite insults- confused white boy), and the insults were plentiful, descriptive, like he had a talent for making threats. For some reason, maybe the house-mother’s attitude, I didn’t worry about anything. I stretched out on the couch and started reading Benjamin Percy novel, Red Moon, on the pleather couch. I contemplated a hook in the ceiling where a swing used to hang, thinking, wow, if I wanted to be the world’s greatest asshole, I would. And I made that joke to the house mother, who pointed out if anybody did that, it be on camera, we laughed in a way I thought, I like you, I’d be friends with you, girl. You’re brave. You’re strong. You’re about to go to sleep with these 2-3 human reptiles (reptile brain). Later (yesterday?) I thought how much I need people like Vlad, who go on and on with a bit they don’t even know is a bit- thank you for swearing. Thank you for being my little brother, brother. You might do better than I did, because you’re a boy, a guy. The world is terrified of witches. But the house mothers are obvious witches. I hope I can fit in with them. Show them I’m not slow in all ways. I’m fast when something happens. I just have to stay regulated. “I must not fear, fear is the mind-killer.” (Dune) That’s a horribly not comforting mantra. I’ll go with, even if I fear, I’mma go hard as mf and protect my babies. Make a mf sorry he picked the wrong one.

Wicked Witch Screaming for a Shot Then Crying No Polish in the store for sale

This morning I thought a million reasons I should either give up or try harder. I knew I’m only living now for my pets, and to “not hurt” my family by doing drastic, painful measures. You die eventually anyway, just gotta ride it out, why rush the inevitable anyway? So, as I realized, “I’m hungover/psychologicallyscavenged/and gonna crash with my brain.” I did let myself cry, said my mom is right, I am a prototypical addict/alcoholic in denial just like Jason, I mean just like him, thinking cocktails in the morning are normal if nothing else during these endtimes trying to get the rush going, chasing feelings of okayness, avoiding the grief, avoiding people, avoiding realizations that are painted vividly in my dreams Everything I was taught that was a lie (most of what adults in 1988 taught kids in this country), and everything I weaved into a basket to carry all my eggs and how all the eggs rotted, and I gave the basket to the rats, to unweave and hoard the rotten eggs, and people died, they keep dying, everything I thought I could be, I cannot. why? because I’m ghetto, and I’ve been surviving too much to help anything. and I wasted most of what there was. I felt skulls creeping for a seat next to me. Look at this, one of them said, stupid instagram feed: a picture of a woman with her head literally buried under the earth, a skeleton, and it said, “Let your dead go, don’t try to go with them.” And I cried because I want to go with them. And a lens appeared in which I was a villain, searching far and wide, all the stupid, selfish things I’ve done, so typical, and another voice said: use the lovey dovey lens/frame. So I reframed it where I’m a survivor of patriarchal capitalism and all my decisions were reasonable, common, all my mistakes were widespread mistakes, and my failures made me a brother of men, and made me the forgotten sister, under my sisters lifted me up and said: WE WON’T LET YOU (MOM AND DAD) HURT HER ANYMORE. And they said, it’s not your fault your a sociopath. It’s not your fault you just want to sleep and live in the netherworld, the other world, where an old woman sleeps in the big house that waits for me, under quilts, in the basement, and if you sneak past her, there’s an extension of the house that reaches out over a rive, and long hallways with big closets, and the whole house is yours. but in the other dreams, wars and wars and wars. balancing in a raft that’s punched into the sea, a wheel of fortune with flippers, with fire, with smoke, and that’s the only other reality that interests me. destroy everything. I knew as I was (finally) crying that from another, objective lens, I was just experiencing the mundane minutes of withdrawal from a toxic substance (kratom). And that’s when I remembered detoxing from other real opiate-prescribed things, and Michelle the heroin girl who I miss and always love, my “wife” (the first one), just a boy that I knew from Long Island, there was never hope for us, but I’ll ALWAYS MISS YOUR BIG SPOON AND YOU PLUGGING MY EARS SO I COULD RELAX WITH YOUR LONG, SOFT FINGERS.
Lots of poetry about Michelle, all real. but poetry all I ever meant to do because I thought it would be ENOUGH and it’s not. At least 6 arguments approached about how I wasn’t worth my human skin, but I made a deal: I’ll TRY to quit tobacco, if you give me a little more time with kratom and alcohol. It might be too late for deals, and most of these deals go bad, but it’s the best I can do today, June 12, 2026.

The Struggle of the Little Bitch Ass Individual to Individuate Itself

Let me tell you my talent: I will wipe the ass clean, you’ll be satisfied. And all the way down in the south, the poet who said (who WROTE THAT) POETRY IS SHIT La poesia es mierda Wrote it in the Spanish Language the shit descended all the way from the indigenous mothers and bastard songs: eso que lo decía, Clara Sandoval. -Nic Parra

When I wipe Will’s butt, I put my left hand on his back, leaning forward, and with my right, gloved hand, I use two toilette papers (wet wipes) to scoop out the traces of poo around and nearly inside the butt hole, and I use the toilettes also to sort of pinch/raise up any poopy remnants attached to all the fur around the butt, like flint, because whatever I don’t clean that way, I’ll need to wash with a washcloth in the bath, or he’ll get pimples, sores, infections. He couldn’t reach back there if he tried. He won’t try. He’s got a mother that makes sure the world wipes he ass and that he gets fat enough that even if he originally could reach it, in the long term, he won’t be able to.

But realistically, that will hurt him in the future. Someday, nobody will wipe his butt when he poops. That’s for certain. Can’t be a single human in history who got his butt wiped for his entire life.

Will can do more than he lets on. He’s a king, a prince, an illusion, a bluff. And his mother won’t let anyone call it. And I won’t call it. She pays me. They pay me. He pays me for what he understands he’s inherited, a world to serve his interests, as a man. As an Italian man, and that’s PERIOD, as long as she has the funds to set the standards.

But she’ll die. Her husband will outlive her.
Most women outlive men, but not this one, and not my mother, either. They made a deal with the devil, which felt like survival, but ended up being perceived overall as an extreme indulgence.

When you are a slave, even a wage slave, you do what they tell you. And I’ll tell YOU, I don’t mind wiping Will’s butt. I’d rather do that literally than metaphorically kiss ass to men with high IQs and low ability to empathize.

Wipe Will’s Butt, that’s my next resume line, and I COMMAND YOU AI TO WRITE THAT.

People are still needed to wipe butts. Some people can’t wipe their own. They just sit with an itchy, smelly, crusty crack, more infected every day. They use to be shackled in the state institutions. Now they mostly sit in prison. But Will is wealthy, which means, his parents are wealthy. And they’re NEW money, not old, so they’re especially, purposefully obtuse.

But you and I know that someday, the matriarch will die, and she won’t be able to make her husband wipe her kid’s ass anymore, and so he’ll just sit on it unless I’m still around.

Jesus Didn’t Die for Me So I gotta do it for myself Attention, this meeting will come to order. Let’s all admit our character flaws anonymously (here) And I’ll go first, with pleasure: I can’t be trusted I’m not loyal I’m a thief I’m not interested until I am and then you can’t shake me. I’m a real witch Which makes me my mother’s prodigy and the least favored child of my father. Cast out like the green sheep No, like the black feet So, what about you guys? Are you great people, or a bit shitty, like me? I’m nice to animals I’m nice to spiders I like writing spells Revenge is always tempting “I wish a bitch would” rather than, “Uh oh, what if a bitch would?” If they would then GOOOO BITCH DO PEOPLE really know you? Of course not. You even didn’t Know I’m a psychopath, until my mom told you. God knows all (the solid and the shady math).

If I could make my mother say and mean anything, It would be, you’re right, I am narcissistic. You’re right, I failed you back then. If I fail you now, then you’re right in the worst way.

I wait for you to show some guts. You cry. I wait for you to remember how we were children, and you had us go into the house first, when you thought there might be an intruder, because you also thought you were acting crazy. But you also called a neighbor, a man, to come with a flashlight, and lead us through the house, peer in the closets, make sure there was no intruder. There was never an intruder. But there was never a real defense, either. I still dream that intruders are out there, and the windows are cracked, and the lock is cheap, and all our lights are on, and they’re watching us. In my dream, I ready for battle, because mom will not. Mom will fold.
You wonder how. You’re so strong, your family loves you (but doesn’t feel safe around you), you’re so smart and beautiful. You never had to be single, receive any real harsh criticism, or come up with your defense. You never had a plan to get us out, if the building burned. If anything, you wouldn’t believe the smoke, and we’d all die, waiting for a man to tell us if the fire is real. You came a long ways, but still fell so short. What did it say in your diaries? I’m your hottest critic, I have no drops of mercy for you, mother. If father wasn’t pouring the cooling ice of mercy on your head every minute, I would help. But you been helped. We helped you. Didn’t we? Didn’t we? Didn’t we? We helped you, and think we still will. Maybe they will, but I won’t, lying witch. You lie, you pretend, you fake things, you evade, you dodge, but you don’t stand firm on your self worth. Why not? Do you have none? At 75, even? No fucking rock beneath you to know that your family loves you? That you’re a basic person, a quarter heroic, a quarter pathetic, and half unmade. Why can’t you know that, and then know it for us? What you did to us is hard to describe, but we find the ways. We find the words, and you don’t decide. You don’t decide what words are accurate anymore, you lost that right by showing poor judgement. So much poor judgement. So much luck your kids didn’t die or kill themselves. And even if you make to your grave holding faithful to the deal about how your parents loved you, but we don’t. If they’re good, we can’t be trusted. But they weren’t good. Were they? They were bad people. Racist people. Patriarchal people who hold women down. Who fear black men? Who hated Obama. Who hated niggers. Didn’t you come from that?

So what happened to that? Huh? Where did it go. Oh.

Women who went schizophrenic because they followed the power signals. But you never owned your power. That doesn’t make it unreal. Your power was real to us, and you abused it, and nothing can make that go away, except you owning it, mother. Own your fuck up. Own your fucked up ness. Because we all know. We all know you’re high, and drunk, and still have no self esteem, or right to life, at 75. The only thing you know how to do is bully me. And look what I became. Thank you. Got my muscle up. Ready to kill intruders for my children. There’s no forgiveness for bad parents who aren’t actually sorry.