LOOSE TOOTH// LOST YOUTH

and now he’s back in the house and he won’t get out. and the dog is freaking the fuck out because he came unannounced. and he’s making me hate myself for the third time today. he won’t stop asking how i’m doing, even though the answer is right in front of him. it’s written in scars; scars in my mouth and on my tongue and on my legs and the knuckles of both of my fidgeting hands. so i tell him that he raised a devious degenerate with no solid plans and an empty head. and he pretends to cry a little bit and tells me that he hated his father too, and i tell him that i couldn’t give less of a fuck if i tried. and i tell him if he wanted to keep me so badly, he should have put the fucking gun down and taken me to the hamptons and gotten me shitfaced and said sorry. but he didn’t. and i tell him how i wish i could wake up in the middle of the night without the phantom fingers in my mouth being shoved down my throat while the weightless spit on my face begins to dry. and then i tell him that i’m lying. that i’d miss it, if it were to stop. because he never could keep his thoughts or his hands off of me. never could love what he hated to see. and he calls me disgusting, and i agree with him. he calls me shallow. and i nod yes, because i’m only as deep as the ashtrays i use. i stick around because i like the abuse. and i know that he hates me for it almost as much as i do. so we leave it at that and sit in silence for a while. and then he tells me how i should stop smoking. and i tell him that he should have quit drinking. and he tells me that he’s been sober for two and a half years. and i tell him that he’s been dead for two and a half years, and to shut the fuck up already. so he pretend cries some more, and waits for forgiveness and it never comes. and sometimes i think that the thought of me dying emotionally scared him so badly that he had to do it physically. but don’t think for a fucking second that i pity him or that i’m going to forgive him somewhere on down the slowly fading line that is my life, because he ended it all, just a little too late. and i’m already fucked for good. and don’t tell me that time heals, or give me any of the metaphysical, emotional self help bullshit, because i already pay my therapist enough to do it herself. this is me now. and this is me for the rest of my life. this is me. because of him. and i fucking hate him for it.

photo ©Bret Lemke