I'm very good at hurting the people I love.
It started as a game almost.
Well, that's a lie. It started with my father.
Doesn't it always?
My father who I love as much as anyone in the world.
My father who would fight with me.
Me, who would fight with my father.
Me, who got very good at fighting with my father.
And my mother.
Who is also very good at fighting with my father.
My mother who burns ice cold and nasty, like frostbite.
My cheerful loving mother who shines joy and light and warmth
Until she has a seventy hour work week and her coworkers are incompetent and she hasn't had time to eat since this morning and then the cold snap sets in.
My mother who can undo my father in a word.
It was a game in the middle.
How quickly I could drive my father to the edge.
Not on purpose. Not in the beginning.
Middle school was hard for me.
I just wanted to feel heard.
And then I figured out what I was doing.
I tried to stop on my father but I knew I could then
And then it was a tool.
I added it to my arsenal and started to sharpen it on other people.
At first it was purely thought experiment.
Sam hates being mocked. Josh is sensitive about his sister. If I teased Ronald about his grades he would lose it.
The thing about the human brain is the more you think something the more it manifests in your reality.
Then, it went back to the people I loved. Maybe it's because they can't or won't leave me. Maybe it's because I don't think I deserve love. Maybe it's because I think that because I love them a bit of harmless ribbing is fine.
I'm not just good at hurting the people I love. I'm good at destroying them.