My father left me with nothing when he died. Although it had only been moments, I knew.
He lay there crudely unrecognizable and yellow with jaundice.
His young wife was flung over the top of his chest with her head buried deep
in the smell of death. She had took the twilight years of my father
and ran him hard and dry.
For a moment, I almost felt sorry for her because the time also took away her best years,
as her face was now swollen and puffy from steroids,
and her body was squeezed into an outfit a size too small.
I could kill her in this moment and not even flinch.
I imagined her draped over my father with a knife in her back as big as a harpoon.
The plans would change, of course, to a double funeral,
which without question, would be more work,
but, the joy it would bring to me to finally put this all behind---
all those years of watching my mother suffer
with things stuffed inside of her that were the size of an elephant!
Things that were filled with hideous pain that grew into huge, ugly tumors.
I know because I was there.
And, instead of healing we just stuffed more things inside ourselve
in the form of self-inflicting torture and gluttony.
The pain had taken a physical form too.
A monster that burrowed it's way into our pores, our bones, our souls.
It didn't take long before I became violently ill
and mother's pain turned itself into a relentless dark entity
that crept and multiplied into every corner of life in her body.
The light had been snuffed out in both of us and we bobbed around
without a life jacket upon a stormy sea.
Mother tried to anchor herself with religion while I sanctified myself with Satan.
All the while, my father built a life on a faraway sensual shore,
a safe harbor within the womb of a matriarchial.
He no longer had to work and filled his days with wine
and crafting wood into objects that would become grandchildren's toys.
Mother, in the womb of hell now, as she had to work two,
sometimes three, jobs to support us , while I did mindless things at the empty house,
things that made the neighbors stare, things that one does not talk about,
You see, I had lost my mind, it was no longer a secret.
I had fits of anger so bad that I spat at people
and I would often go days without showering or brushing my teeth.
I wore soiled clothes and funny hats.
Mother couldn't bear to lose me
so I stayed in the house long enough to no longer be called a guest.
The day finally came though, that mother could no longer work
and she came home and never left the house again after that day.
She coughed so violently at night that she had to sleep sitting upright on the sofa.
I would often find her late at night with her eyes still open
and staring blankly at the television.
I didn't bother to move her or cover her from the cold.
I was a worthless piece of shit that clung to the sides of the toilet bowl.
My resentment grew towards my father, but, I didn't dare reveal it.
So,quite often, the monsters that crawled upon me
would pick at my scabs at night.
It soon became obvious that I didn't sleep well either.
I had night terrors so vivid that when I awoke
I could still feel the hot, salivating,, breath of a warthog upon my face.
My clothes had an awful stench to them and I would be soaking wet,
as if I had just ran miles, with a racing heart, across a dry, hot, savanna.
After nearly five days without sleep,
I became consumed entirely by this dark blanket of morbid fear and dampened reality.
I was sure I would die of insanity while I watched mother die from a broken heart.
One evening, I ripped the phone from her weak grasp,
as she tried to secretly call for help.
I struck her in the side with it until she cried in a soft, pitiful voice
that I had never heard before.
It angered and frightened me knowing I was gone~
knowing I no longer existed and was replaced by this creature full of hate
-- An ugly dripping toad of a person!
I flung my hands in all directions in a wild fit,
knocking down sacred keepsakes and collectibles.
Mother's bookcase came crashing down, flinging violently into the air ,
her Grandmother's collection of Poe and old prayer books.
They laid, scattered about the room with ragged torn covers.
I was not surprised to open the door the following morning
and see that help had arrived anyway.
It arrived in the form of things crazier and more cruel than I.
It arrived in the form of over-inflated bibles,
white-collared men with hard, piercing, conservative eyes
and relatives that always stayed too long and smelled worse than four day fish.
The cure for me came in tongues, spoken in a way that only someone
in a straight jacket could understand.
I was wiped down with putrid oils and shamed in the center of their circle,
then politely asked to leave.
I stood outside the home, with it's barely dry, fresh coat of paint,
and memorized every crack and every curve.
The way the house seemed to be unsettled
and would shift when one would walk across it's floors.
The rooms, each with their own personality and story to tell,
the kitchen with it's smell of burnt toast, and strong coffee.
Mother often hide plastic toads in the bottom of the cups
and would listen for the screams later, but, I would laugh instead.
After my assessment that day, I turned and walked away,
knowing I would never see either again.
When mother died, the house went with her, and I found myself alone
and without a home.
I had to resort to begging on bended knee.
I finally moved in with an old boyfriend, whether we had that kind of love or not.
The place was tiny and cramped with mold in every corner
and large black spiders on the ceiling.
It was there that the illness in my mind grew in a thick second layer.
I often thought about killing him and biting into his fleshy body--
-but, mostly, I was afraid, it was I that would wake
in a smoldering, dying breath or feel the burn and dripping
wetness of a knife as it was being pulled out of my back.
Life lay quietly and unmoved when I received news about my father's illness.
Since it had only been a year after my mother,
I was sure she found a way to squeeze her way through his intestines
and rest, happily polluting his bowels.
The visits to see him were unpleasant.
I hid the seething and the shaking the best I could.
My stepmother entertained us with her twin gray cats
who swat at their fancy feathered toys.
They never came near me. I was sure they knew my secrets
and could smell the rotted hell that lived inside me.
One of the cats died suddenly, and my father grew quickly worse.
My visits became more frequent as he approached his final stage.
I could smell the scent of his skin as it decayed
and his voice grew raspy and hoarse.
Even in his final breath he never once asked about my mother.
The next morning, after the body fluids, and the smell, had been cleared away,
I was asked to come back.
My step mother presented me with an old army knife
and uniform complete with medals and patches on the lapel.
My eyebrows raised up in surprise, then I stood and stared at her with squinted eyes.
The musky smell rolled in the air on waves of a memory that would not be forgotten.
So, you see, my father left me with nothing when he died
and my mother left me with very little.
I was living in the house she lived in and when she died the house went with her.
Death leaves you broke. It leaves you in pieces and penniless.
It leaves you at the bottom of a dark hole and never throws a rope down.
It leaves you to be alive but rotting.
“Is this okay”, my stepmother asked handing me the folded uniform,
and pulling me back into the current, crucifying, realm.
I could not answer~ we struggled inside, the monster and I!
Suddenly, knowing exactly what was meant to be,
I lunged at her with the very inheritance he left me!
It was a wonderous, beautiful gift after all!
I had quickly removed the army knife from it's leather case
and was joyfully plunged it into her bloated belly—
and the medals, those shiny treasures of honor!
I have never been so happy!
I plunged the tips of the needles deep into her eyes, replacing her lens entirely.
How glorious they looked staring up at me as she withered, shook, and frothed!
I buried her in the backyard beside her cat,
so the current smell would not be questioned.
I moved into their house that day and drank Rooibus tea
and played with one remaining gray cat and it's fine feathered toys,
because you see, I was feeling a whole lot better, in fact, I was cured.
Now, I am as sane as you are.
