May 2017

I saw Tool on the side stage at Lollapalooza in 1993, again in 2007 and a birthday miracle occurred and I am going to see them again. Once a decade.

“I’ve come round, full circle” Prison Sex

I wrote this after I saw them the last time. I was a mess, shit was falling apart with ex hubby, my friend Kerry rescued me.

I am amazed at who I was and who I have become.

“I know the pieces fit” Schism

I thought I was shy, I thought I was timid, I thought I was a pacifist, I thought I couldn’t fight…I have lived most of my life believing these things to be true…and then oh and then…
“I’ve been crawling on my belly clearing out what could have been.
I’ve been wallowing in my own chaotic insecure delusions.
I want to feel the change consume me; feel the outside turning in.
I want to feel the metamorphosis and cleansing of enduring.
My shadow. My shadow.
Change is coming,
Now is my time.”
46 & 2 ~TOOL
Kerry invited me to Tool, I fucking love Tool, in the music segment on my myspace it says “a choir of angles could not make a sweeter sound than when Maynard James Keenan sings”. It is the truth.
She said we were going to be in the pit, and to be honest with you, I was terrified. Every time she said or typed the word “pit” I would panic a little. To the point where I almost traded tickets at Tim Horton’s so I could have myself a nice safe seat, but I didn’t.
As we stood in line for beer I looked around and my fear was rationalized, compounded and multiplied, I came to the horrid realization that I was standing in the middle of a fucking frat party. No cool people in sight, just meat-headed jocks and little rocker boys, and a very small handful of women all of whom were in various stages of getting drunk. I was astounded by the number of flip flops adorning the feet of both sexes.
We walked onto the floor an hour early; we each pissed on our 18 square inches of concrete and claimed them as our own. Not enough space that we were being greedy mind you, just enough to move and breathe and see and experience and enjoy. We made friends with the cool people who had their pieces of concrete floor near to us. 4 deep from the barrier on the left hand side by the speaker. Our new friends included one big guy, three tiny 20 year old girls and one of the tiny girl’s boyfriends who shall now be known forever as “the nice boy on my left.”
I am by nature or nurture (I am not sure which), claustrophobic, my greatest fear is the mob mentality and being crushed by the masses. I had no desire to get shoved kicked pushed squished groped and yet I knew all of things were bound to happen. I steadied my self for a rough couple of hours, plotted my escape routes and finally just said fuck it.
At approximately 9:15pm the music started and I found myself in the middle of a war, a sea of little teenage dirt bag fuckers (who have no idea what a mosh pit is and just for the fucking record were in kindergarten and still wetting the bed when I first saw Tool) decided to interrupt me while I was absorbing and Maynard sang his lungs out.
Sweaty doped up sneaky fuckers trying to push ahead, moving the whole crowd as they cut and shoved trying to take what was ours. My chest constricted in panic, my veins filled with battery acid, bodies pressed into me from every angle and I was falling. I could still see the barrier to my left and I calmed down a little, I had fallen into a friendly back, he turned to check on me and gave me an arm to steady myself.
Fight or flee and I surprised the fuck out of myself. I fought.
Evidently I am not to be fucked with when Maynard and my personal space are involved.
Evidently I am a violent girl.
I grabbed the large friendly guy in front of me and twisted his t shirt into my hands, dug my feet in and shoved back as hard as I could while the nice boy on my left grinned his devilish grin at me and did the same.
Kerry turned and checked on me, and I was a little panicked, I admit it, but I signaled to her I was okay by making a mean face and holding up my elbow. My experience waitressing in the narrowest busiest bar on Yonge Street was easily applied to my present situation. My mini battle was won and I was kinda sorta starting to feel a little bit brave.
So it continued for the next 2 hours.
I was repeatedly invited into the fold, into the “safe” pocket. Fuck that, no thanks; something in me NEEDED to be able to back up. I felt obligated to keep my space hold the line and keep these numb fucks away from my friends.
Some asswipe put his arm around my waist in a protective familiar manner and got both his feet stomped with my boots and both my elbows to the gut, he backed off. One boy left his chin print as a contusion on my arm unfortunately for me I was aiming for his nose. I got kicked and elbowed and punched and I loved it. I kicked punched and elbowed back and I loved that even more.
Some other big stoned and drunk fuck tried to push me out of his way and I knocked him over on his ass and laughed so hard at the look on his face when he realized I was a girl. Another guy started howling triumphantly when he had successfully grabbed my tit as a mini mosh pit broke out behind us, the nice boy on my left saw it, waited for me to nod approval and punched the idiot in the throat and cut him off mid howl. It was a satisfying noise. I paid back the favour 5 minutes later when I pulled him out of the way of a crowd surfer just in time stop him from receiving a boot to the head.
Oh the nice boy on my left, he had my back and I had his. He looked up at me with great adoration throughout the evening. He never once insulted me by trying to shield me, he knew I was getting off on it and so was he, we held the line, fighting on and off back to back and sharing smokes in between.
I held my elbow up to a guy’s throat, screamed at him that he wasn’t welcome (not quite that politely mind you) and he backed off.
At one point we earned a 6 foot pocket of space behind us.
I watched Kerry through the crowd; she grabbed and shoved a kid back by his throat never missing a beat. She took on a huge fucker Harry Manback asshole who was going to step on our girls and she won.
My moment of triumph came when some dumb fuck tried to cut in front of me and step one of the tiny girls I was feeling maternally protective over and I could not abide by that, I hooked my arm around his neck picked him up and put him behind me then elbowed his kidney for good measure.
I feel SO GOD DAMN STRONG.

Something happened to me last night. I changed. I have been feeling weak and now I am so far from it. I am bruised and sore and so very deaf and I have never been more full of pride. I danced hard when I could and I fought hard when I had to and I started wanting it, I wanted someone to shove me so I could shove back. The scared girl I was is gone. Last night I fell asleep sated and dreamt of fighting.
That feeling isn’t going away. I spent 33 years avoiding physical confrontation, now all I have to say is please fuck with me, just give me one good reason.

Oh yes, I really hadn’t forgotten, the music was magnificent wondrous glorious and spectacular. I was filled and refilled with great reverence and awe. Maynard’s voice was seraphic. I experienced an auditory and visual orgasm that rarely waned and constantly climaxed, and just when I thought I couldn’t possibly stand the beauty and power of it there was another wave to carry me further along to a new pinnacle of ecstasy. We were so close I could feel every bass chord and drum beat resonate through my chest. I have never experienced something so perfect, and I might never again. My eyes sparkled and shone while I cried from the joy of simply being there, and I would not have been surprised if Maynard had grown wings.

Rob Breszney put forth yet another challenge. This time to write a letter to our future selves. Brain storming ideas for things we want to accomplish this year.

I do the opposite.

Every day.

Each morning, I get up, make coffee, light a cigarette and immediately head to the On This Day app on my Facebook.

Caffeine, nicotine and a time capsule for breakfast.

I go back in time instead of planning ahead. But the past is so cozy and already figured out and compartmentalized and my sins are forgiven or washed away or just forgotten.

Not the worst way to start the day.

Reminds me that I was in some really dark places, and some really beautiful ones too.

I gotta be honest. I don’t miss farm spring with the floods and the mud and the goose bites. Mind you a lot of those things could have been avoided if I was in charge.

I let a lot of life happen to me.

It is not a good habit.

I don’t know how to stick up for myself at all. I am always afraid I will get yelled at or left. So I am complacent in how I am treated. Until I am not. I hit a wall and I’m done.

Houston, we have a problem.

Him: You know what you deserve

Me: Do I?

Him: I wonder sometimes honestly if you know your worth….

Me: You know I don’t

Him: I wish you could see yourself through my eyes for just a moment

Me: Me too

Him: That’s why you go to these boys that don’t step up…Baby you are so fucking amazing….you have a mind second to none….you have style and grace and the sex drive of a goddess….and a body that should be fucked daily….and cuddled….and have someone that pushes your mind….but I can tell you all day….until you see it……

Me: I love you. Thank you

Him: I love you….I’ve always got your back.

I think that is my wish. Or my brain stormy idea of what I want to accomplish. When people talk to me like Habibi just did up there, I want to believe them. And I want to believe them because I know it’s the truth, not just because I value his opinion. We dated ages ago and super briefly, he has no agenda or reason to blow sunshine up my ass, other than I am feeling a bit dark right now and he sees it. In the grand scheme of things he listens to me babble and whine way more than I listen to him. I look back on so many conversations and I cringe when I see that he came to me to talk and I somehow turn it around and make it all about me. But, he loves me anyways.

I fuck up. Lawds yes I do. Why can’t I love me anyways? I love others who fuck up. My middle name is Forgiveness.

I try so hard to give them what they need.

But what about me?

Sometimes I need things.

Why is that so hard to say out loud?

I don’t need much. Food, snuggles, sex, a walk on the beach, some texts containing dirty memes and a forehead kiss now and again..

I wonder if men think that I am playing some kind of game, wherein I say and behave in a way that dictates I am not complicated but really, I’m just reeling them in and my secret identity is Super High Maintenance Girl.

I’m not.

The other shoe isn’t going to drop.

I hate shoes. See above where I would rather just be barefoot on the beach.

I started thinking ‘one day someone will appreciate me’ then I stopped.

I think as long as I appreciate me, my thoughts, actions/reactions, my way of doing things and feeling things. As long as I enjoy my own ride and find pleasure, profundity and meaning in the things I do and feel. Then ultimately everything is alright.

(Notes I leave myself on Facebook)

Clickbait. Any post with the words fuck or pussy.

For all you know this could be an article about cats. But realistically, it’s me. You know it ain’t.

My numbers have been a little low lately, but I’m not a tease.

It’s really about vaginas.

A girl I work with walked towards me in the smoking paddock. She was back lit by the fading sunlight. Photographers call this the golden hour because everything looks beautiful bathed in glowing golden sunlight at dusk and dawn.
Things I cannot shake, my eye for finding photos and my overthinking of everything and attempting to get it all down. I suppose they are the same thing. Capturing moments one way or another.

Got off track. Back now.

Shes a beautiful girl, freckled tanned skin, long dark hair, light eyes, funny as fuck and a nice body on her. She was wearing a low rise white thong, super see through and had the prettiest camel toe I had ever seen.

Camel toe is such a crass term for what this was. Just a delicate outline of a pretty pussy. Sheathed in soft white fabric, just being cute in the glow of a sunset.

I have worked in strip clubs since 1997. And although I had some squeamish moments, usually during lunch shift at my first club, when as a waitress I would deliver a club sandwich to a guy in perverts row and invariably come face to pussy I guess with some girl’s vagina. The stage was set at eye level on purpose, can’t be avoided really. I’d blush, put the sammich down and go on about my day.

Needless to say, I have seen a LOT of vaginas in my day.

I got used to it rather quickly, fairly desensitized I guess. Except that one time when I was yet again, putting a beer down in perverts row, looked up just as I heard the girls name announced and realized I was staring into my ex-husbands ex-girlfriends pussy. Like inches from my face. That threw me a bit. I had not learned then to quell my jealousy and I honestly didn’t know how to feel. That isn’t a thing that happens often outside of my world, no precedents set for that exactly. In retrospect, it was a mild discomfort, nothing more.

At the same bar there happened to be a girl with what can only be described as a large vagina. Rather than revolting, it was fascinating, her clit was bigger than my thumb. Her lips in a perpetual state of swollen. I am not ashamed to admit, every time she went on stage I stared. I could only begin to imagine what that felt like….both to be her and to fuck her. Alas I never found out.

When it came to stripping myself I would often do the reverse of the norm and take my panties off on the second song rather than my bra. I hate my tits, my pussy is/was kinda adorable. I have an innie, been proud of how that part of my body looked for quite some time. So, choosing to reveal that first and having 3 less minutes with my boobs out and thereby open to ridicule worked just fine for me.

These days…sadly no. Panties stay on as long as possible. And I’ll tell you why.

I had a bad Brazilian. You know, where you trust another person to apply hot wax to your holiest of holies and violently rip the hair out because its summer time and you are at the beach every damned day. Ya one of those. I had been going to the same place quite happily for 3 months. But this time was different. Maybe she was having a bad day. Maybe I didn’t tip her enough, who knows, but this time Bitch burned me and skinned me. My skin is still recovering. I now have chronic cystic ingrown and my once pretty pussy has scars and bumps.

I have spent 5 months and over $500 on creams, lotions, scrubby things, pills etc trying to get her back to her former glory. I miss her. I truly do. She is my most favorite and fun body part. Which is why, I am committing to 90 days of medication to fix it once and for all at the cost of making me extremely light sensitive. I worship the sun. We only get 90 days of it in Canada. But if it works it will be worth it.

I hate feeling insecure and shy about it during sex. I suppose this is what a lot of women feel all the time, without the excuse of a bad wax. But just because society has vilified this part of us. This wondrous amazing part.

Butch: You think guys would find that attractive?
Fabienne: I don’t give a damn what men find attractive. It’s unfortunate what we find pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye is seldom the same. 

(Pulp Fiction)

It’s true.

My pussy is a magical thing. I have tantric orgasms that span over minutes and more glorious minutes. When I am aroused my lips puff up and my clit peeks out between them at the top reaching towards whomever is making me feel this way.

I get slip ‘n’ slide wet under the right circumstances. I get tighter the more I get fucked and apparently the spasms that occur inside me feel as good to my partner as they do to me.

I just finished the book. The evil book I have been bitching about and working on for 2 years.

Its porn. Vaginas come into play often. So many puns so little time, that’ll have to do.

But in having to come up with descriptive terms over and over 350+ pages I think I learned to love them a little more.

The sensitive skin of his intense erection felt every miniscule movement of her muscles trying to draw him inside, like pink swaying anemones, dancing out, playfully attempting to bring him home and feed on him.

All pussies, great and small.

Every artist is a cannibal every poet is a thief, all kill their inspiration then sing about their grief. U2

I am going to lose some friends over this. I know it. I have made peace with this. If they bail because I feel compelled to stick up for someone who has always been there for me, so be it. Warmth can only come from a burning and love always comes due in blood. (SK) and I owe him. I’ll bleed.

Once upon a time in a strip club far, far away two baby strippers (19 and 20 respectively) I knew and loved got in a fight about something and never spoke to each other again. Couldn’t tell you what the fight was about. You know why?
Because they both respected my friendship with the other and never asked me to pick a side nor called me in to bitch about the other.

They are the standard to which I hold all my present company.

Two
Baby
Strippers

I am reminded of Kings 3:25 King Solomon ordering the baby to be cut in half. The one who truly loved him screamed no, would rather lose the baby than see it bleed. I am screaming NO now and you are insisting on cutting the baby.

Do you need his blood for ink?

You can’t put tape over your mouth and let your fingers do the talking.
That isn’t silence.
Silence is dignified.

Silence also gives consent. Again I scream, No. Just no.

Oh honey. You can’t call it a smear campaign if it’s just the other half of the truth. His opinion of what went wrong. Also, you were kinda the monkey that threw the first turd and the second third fourth etc so ya. There’s that then.

That’s the same as telling someone to leave and getting angry when they walk out the door.

Oh wait, isn’t that what happened?

If someone says you hurt them you don’t get to decide you didn’t. Louis CK

You hurt him.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.
Rumi.

I don’t believe in absolute right or wrong, everything is truly shades of grey.
Here I have found peace. But that ain’t your thing.

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

I am not a snack for your starving ego.
I am soul food for someone who actually has one.
(Me)

Ya, that.

You can’t chew someone up, spit them out and complain about the taste it left. He just wanted what you promised.

You can’t give someone shit for talking to an ex when yours is on his way over to your house.

Didn’t he cheat, steal and lie?

Wasn’t there prolific poetry about that break up too?

Who is collecting writers now?

I understand that there are bad men out there. Bad men doing bad things to women.
I’ve been through a lot and I also know I put myself in those positions. I stopped sabotaging my own heart, stopped running AT red flags and I’ve been rather happy ever since.
I know I gravitate to wolves and I don’t complain about the bite marks or the wandering or the howling.
I make my own bed and I fuck in it.

We are barely sentient apes. We fumble and mumble and trip over our ill-timed words and erections and ourselves…our stupid selves. And we are astonished that you love us. Please. Keep loving us.
Lawrence Bayne

I know not all men. The guy I am defending is one of the good ones, the one I just quoted too. My father is one, my mister and my son. All good men.

I believe, fundamentally most people are inherently good. Otherwise we woulda kinda died out as a species by now.

I post a lot of memes.
I am almost numb to them at this point.

I post a lot of things from a female perspective, because, I am the proud owner of a vagina.

Due in large part to said vagina and the state of the world I post a heavy amount of female positive posts.
Women are my sisters and when I lift them up I also rise.

I don’t have to step on the bones of men to elevate myself.

Yes, some days the bastards grind me down.

Some days the bitches grind me down even harder.

Today is one of those days.

Leave him alone.

Keep {his} name out of your fucking mouth (Orange is the New Black)

I tried that whiskey. Didn’t like it, way too watery with a smack of angst.

Did I miss the memo wherein it explained that my part of the world was supposed to go crazy for a bit?

Just one by one flying or sliding off the rails depending.

Full moon is well over and Gemini season has yet to begin. Mercury has stationed direct too, Venus is where she should be. What cosmic fuckery is this? I know it rained for a week straight and we all went a little stir crazy but the sun has been out for days now.

Fuck, I did it too. Drank way too much and ended up doing a few bumps.
I fucking hate cocaine…who am I right now?

Right now right now? A girl with regrets and a stuffy nose.

And determination to not do that again. Truth is, I might. I would rather not but I am fallible.

Who am I usually? The girl who asks why.

I am sitting here, listening to Panda snore over my ultra-quiet John Mayer playlist, typing away for you nice folks and I think I know why I derailed.

I was temporarily and fundamentally unhappy for a bit there. Kept trying to plug away and make it okay, but it wasn’t. The stress wore at me like some low grade acid and ya…whoops. I didn’t hit rock bottom, but wherever I landed was adjacent to rock bottom. Like a gravelly mezzanine.

I am currently in some weird limbo with a relationship I thought I wanted out of but I really want to be in.
I have some penance to do and that is okay.

“If it’s time for recompense for what’s done, come sit down on a bench in the sun” Nick Drake

I love that song, that line and that idea.

If you would be forgiven, be forgiving and forgivable.

Don’t play the blame game.

I am perfectly find standing here and saying, yes…this is my fault. I could go on and on and on about how ‘well he did this and that and the other fucking thing’, but I don’t. I rarely do in here. I have no control over anyone’s actions but my own. My life, good or bad, is my responsibility.

Have I bad mouthed my exes? Yep. Nowhere did I ever claim to have a halo or wings. I am not perfect and after getting pimped out, cheated on and finding out the Poet was collecting pretty female writers like trophies, I think it’s fair to get those things out so they don’t fester.

There are a few schools of thought when it comes to writing.

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”― Anne Lamott

Yep. I agree. People do shitty shit to each other. I have been hurt and in working through it I have realized that baggage doesn’t belong to me, something was hurting or missing in them and that is why they did what they did. I don’t need to own it or carry it. I also don’t need to wax poetic about it either. Much better to let it go rather than have it fester and require amputation. I like my limbs as is thank you very much.

Some writers have built their brand on heartache. See above where I dated a poet who collected pretty girl writers to feed his ego and his work. I fell for it. My bad. I get it, its angst driven and relatable, it draws forth rousing choruses of ‘me too’.

But ‘she who fights the monsters should see to it that she herself does not become one’ Nietzsche

Again, what if you are the one holding the knife, cutting yourself (and others in the process) and writing in your own blood?

Just fucking staaaaaahp.

The most popular gladiators were not the ones who killed quickly and mercifully. People want a show blood, guts, pain…a gory spectacle. Not ‘we tried but I’m not over my ex so…sorry’. Or ‘shit, I really fucked this up.’ Although, that is how and what I write now and I too hear the words ‘me too’. Apparently those are my people. The ones outside of the arena.

I used to eat drama for breakfast, poured over a big bowl of crazy cornflakes.

Now I find it basic and boorish.

Throwing around the word narcissist like they actually know what it means. I pray for their delicate little souls they never meet a real one. Or perhaps, you need to look in the mirror.

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Face it, all the rocks can forever stay on the ground, we have all fucked up at one time or another. But please, do make sure your hands are clean before you go pointing fingers. Don’t call the kettle black if you are the one who did the leaving.

You can’t nail yourself to a cross and still call yourself a martyr. Come down now, we can build a fire with the wood and warm your chilled little broken bird heart.

You’re talking shit again
It’s heartbreak warfare
Good to know it’s all a game
Disappointment has a name…
It’s heartbreak warfare

Jon Mayer

Before I knew that water and music were two of my favorite things, my dad knew it.

And he made sure I had as much of both as possible.

He would take us to this little lake in the middle of nowhere. Trying to keep up with his giant strides down a gravel driveway, through a path canopied in trees and we would sit on the dock and fish for sunfish. Squealing with delight at the tiny things made of scales and rainbows gasped for air on the dock until my dad set them free to be caught another day. He baited our hooks until it was time to teach us how. He let me bring a snail home and keep it in a Skippy peanut butter jar with holes in the lid. I probably named it Joey, I named everything Joey. I loved sitting on that dock, it was so decrepit but it floated in a soothing way, the wood always held the warmth of the sun shimmering on the lake’s surface like diamonds, the water so clear you could watch the fish nibble at the worms.

Worms we had dug up in his garden. My dad always planted the best gardens. We helped, walking behind him dropping seeds into the well tilled soil. Making mounds for zucchini and cucumbers, picking fat, green, horned caterpillars off the tomato plants once they had grown. Watching the seeds we held in our tiny hands spring to life. We didn’t plant the corn, it had a pink coating to keep the deer away and it was poison, he planted the corn himself. I still don’t plant corn in my gardens, I don’t want to hurt the deer.

We would drive to the lake some weekends, the lake which was to become mine. We had to cross a footbridge and there was a rock shaped like a turtle under it. He let me believe for years that it really was a turtle and humored my ideas of rescuing it before it drowned and my fascination that it was always there when we were, like it was waiting for us.

Imaginary turtles. My sister’s imaginary friend. Me not liking getting syrup on my eggs or yolk on my pancakes so my sunny side up Sunday breakfast always arrived at the table on two plates. A luxury really. Squasha (the imaginary friend) had a place setting for a while too.

Putting up the old musty canvas tent with a thousand pole pieces and strings so we could sleep outside. Then fussing because it killed a patch of his perfect lawn. But he did it anyways. I always sleep better outside.

Him buying me a tape deck and copying albums I liked to cassette because I needed music to sleep inside. Still do.

Sitting with me for hours on end going over times tables till I cried because my brain didn’t work that way. I still can’t do them the way normal people can, but I am better.

I really do have the best dad. He had no sons so we stacked the wood with him, went to baseball games and tug-o-war when we had to move away for the summer.

I think kids take for granted how much our fathers bend and almost break trying to keep us shielded from the world while still letting us explore it and preparing us to go out in it. He had that perfect balance of supporting and letting us figure out how to do things on our own. Infinite patience.

Then there are those who didn’t have good fathers, or fathers at all. My son is one, his father took no interest, spent no time. He “didn’t want kids anyways’” (direct quote). He was never around, there was hours and days of therapy too ease my child’s mind. Lengthy discussions about how some people are just in different places in their life, that he was MY decision and the best one I ever made. We made it. I raised my son to not believe that father was a synonym for god, even though it is to me. And as deities do, my dad stepped up and made up for everything lacking.

But what happens when a man fathers a child that he doesn’t want and he sticks around, sorta. Fair weather fathers are worse than fair weather friends by far. Friends are a choice. They can be dismissed when they no longer bring us joy. Parents we are stuck with. Biological imperatives being what they are. “I love you as much as I am genetically obligated to and not one drop more.”

What if they don’t know love at all? Are not capable of it is what I mean.

Emancipation is an option but it is a hard thing to give up on the one person who isn’t supposed to give up on you. It isn’t simply cutting a thread, its hacking through flesh and bone and sinew with a butter knife. Because they never taught you what a good knife was, how to care for it or use it. Not a good life either. They didn’t know.

Their children become puppets. Strings yanking this way and that or worse, slumped over and tangled because the puppeteer had better things to do.

I’ve seen these gruff, rough manly men lend their DNA to artists and the pain in the boy’s eyes knowing he is never going to match up to some ideal that was born at the same time as he, the second the doctor said ‘it’s a boy!’. Artists are the lucky ones, they have an outlet for their pain. Some of the fathers even come around to a new definition of pride.

And it goes the other way too. Useless narcissistic men with no talent or masculinity in them at all somehow being blessed with warrior sons. Where nature is stronger than nurture and these poor boys have raw power and no guidance. It becomes a scenario like the war boys in Max Mad Fury Road. These boys with their own talent and merit worshipping a false idol that sits on high with his harem and gives them no thought other than “what can they do for me with the half-life they’ve been given?”

Or worse. Jealousy. Misplaced angst and anger over a life badly spent. Blame the kids. Everything woulda been fine if your mother kept her legs closed. Sons that are twice the man they could ever hope to be with their whole life ahead of them. The only examples given are what not to do. That leaves a lot of room for error, self-doubt and self-loathing. The sins of the father visited on the sons.

So what can be done?

Separation of the church of dad and that state of mind.

The realization that not all fathers are holy, sometimes they just ghost.

“Maybe he had never forgotten, or never that little boys grow up remembering every blow and word of scorn, that they grow up wanting to eat their fathers alive.” Stephen King, Rage

To me living well is the best revenge, I have years of practice with narcissistic men.

Silence and distance are the answer. But I am my father’s daughter and he taught me well.