Trigger Warning: A Wild Pack of Family Dogs
I talked to my brother;
we don't talk often
but when we do
we like it.
He left the family and stayed away
for many good reasons,
and a few so-so ones.
I was telling truncated versions
of the last 5 years.
Where sister,
how mother,
which uncle,
what little I know.
Just the facts, ma'am.
We can't talk details.
There is no point, really.
It's too much.
It's too much for MOST people.
Even the vague outline offers only
dismay in the best of times,
disgust in the worst.
He's also got battlefield memories to pack around,
war after war,
he doesn't want/need
another war to remember.
He KNOWS
just like
I know.
He guffaws at the shadows,
unconsciously connecting the
terrors they represent.
"Wow! Our family sure is FUCKED UP! Wow!"
"Yep!" I agree
and we laugh
the laugh
of escaped prisoners.
Because everything is connected,
Mom comes out of the woodwork, too.
Coming down from her mountaintop
fresh with new rivers of horror
from deep in the open secrets.
Things she learned
over the summer
from old friends
of a part of the family
I stopped associating with
in my teens.
They are the first people
outside of our family we've found
WHO KNOW.
They are from inside the trust-bond
where perpetrators tell their victims to hide.
"I can't HANDLE this!
How am I supposed to HANDLE THIS?"
Mom shudders as she tells.
[Trigger Warning: Awful Shit]
But they're her brothers.
They carry different secrets about themselves.
It's her daughter, my sister.
With her own kind of secrets.
People I'd rather not know
if it were my choice.
These secrets
are same ones she's been spending 40 years shouting about
in the fear that she's the only person who knows.
Who sees.
Who feels.
It's mostly hear/say,
glimpses,
stories,
concerning witnessed moments,
because she knows
crimes considered "private"
stay private
unless you are willing to break the silence.
Shatter the taboo
around accusing deeply-suspected abusers,
even if you love them,
like they're family
because they're family.
So.
She.
Tells.
EVERYONE.
And honestly?
I love that about her.
I love that
SO MUCH
about her.
Because there are a couple arms in our family,
with paws that claw at the end of their wrists
rather than hands.
Legs of our family
who don't
act
human.
Figureheads that
eat
other
people.
She's the one person in the family
who isn't willing to stay quiet
about the horrors.
Maybe it needs capitalized.
The Horrors.
Generation after generation.
The Horrors crawling up that family arm
and down that family leg
picking each other's teeth
with talons
that hungrily eat innocence.
Mom has come to learn that a bad situation
for a particular young girl
raised in that werewolfish arm
was worse than she thought.
A proliferation of abusers,
settling on a handful
of raised-to-be-victims.
They networked
through unhealthy marriages
between unhealthy families.
A family-unit of victimized abusers
who breed for new victims
to pass around.
The Horror continues.
You may say things like,
"Why doesn't she go to the cops?"
and it's funny what happens
when you tell people
that in some U.S. States
a 50 year old man can be convicted in court of possessing/sharing child porn,
and molesting his granddaughter,
(with charges going back 30 years of molesting his step-daughter)
and never spend even a single night in jail.
EVER.
In fact,
if the wife of the perpetrator,
and mother of the victim deems it okay,
he can even still be around his underage victim(s).
In fact,
if the wife of the perpetrator,
and mother of the victim deems it okay,
he can even have private/alone visitation with his underage victim(s).
These are the rights men have in their families
according to some state laws.
This isn't hear-say,
this isn't anecdotal information,
this is my family -
and also incidentally why "family"
doesn't necessarily mean the same thing to you
as it does to me.
There are only a handful of us who scraped by,
who escaped or evaded
or were shielded
and so these traumas are second-hand
and double-bold
because we are folded in this mix
no matter how we try and stay separated.
The Horror
is a part of each of us in the family....
whether we acknowledge it
or not.
I'm hoping to meet my brother in Vegas for his 50th Birthday.
We'll talk about everything else,
and we'll have a great time
like two laughing escapees.
we don't talk often
but when we do
we like it.
He left the family and stayed away
for many good reasons,
and a few so-so ones.
I was telling truncated versions
of the last 5 years.
Where sister,
how mother,
which uncle,
what little I know.
Just the facts, ma'am.
We can't talk details.
There is no point, really.
It's too much.
It's too much for MOST people.
Even the vague outline offers only
dismay in the best of times,
disgust in the worst.
He's also got battlefield memories to pack around,
war after war,
he doesn't want/need
another war to remember.
He KNOWS
just like
I know.
He guffaws at the shadows,
unconsciously connecting the
terrors they represent.
"Wow! Our family sure is FUCKED UP! Wow!"
"Yep!" I agree
and we laugh
the laugh
of escaped prisoners.
Because everything is connected,
Mom comes out of the woodwork, too.
Coming down from her mountaintop
fresh with new rivers of horror
from deep in the open secrets.
Things she learned
over the summer
from old friends
of a part of the family
I stopped associating with
in my teens.
They are the first people
outside of our family we've found
WHO KNOW.
They are from inside the trust-bond
where perpetrators tell their victims to hide.
"I can't HANDLE this!
How am I supposed to HANDLE THIS?"
Mom shudders as she tells.
[Trigger Warning: Awful Shit]
But they're her brothers.
They carry different secrets about themselves.
It's her daughter, my sister.
With her own kind of secrets.
People I'd rather not know
if it were my choice.
These secrets
are same ones she's been spending 40 years shouting about
in the fear that she's the only person who knows.
Who sees.
Who feels.
It's mostly hear/say,
glimpses,
stories,
concerning witnessed moments,
because she knows
crimes considered "private"
stay private
unless you are willing to break the silence.
Shatter the taboo
around accusing deeply-suspected abusers,
even if you love them,
like they're family
because they're family.
So.
She.
Tells.
EVERYONE.
And honestly?
I love that about her.
I love that
SO MUCH
about her.
Because there are a couple arms in our family,
with paws that claw at the end of their wrists
rather than hands.
Legs of our family
who don't
act
human.
Figureheads that
eat
other
people.
She's the one person in the family
who isn't willing to stay quiet
about the horrors.
Maybe it needs capitalized.
The Horrors.
Generation after generation.
The Horrors crawling up that family arm
and down that family leg
picking each other's teeth
with talons
that hungrily eat innocence.
Mom has come to learn that a bad situation
for a particular young girl
raised in that werewolfish arm
was worse than she thought.
A proliferation of abusers,
settling on a handful
of raised-to-be-victims.
They networked
through unhealthy marriages
between unhealthy families.
A family-unit of victimized abusers
who breed for new victims
to pass around.
The Horror continues.
You may say things like,
"Why doesn't she go to the cops?"
and it's funny what happens
when you tell people
that in some U.S. States
a 50 year old man can be convicted in court of possessing/sharing child porn,
and molesting his granddaughter,
(with charges going back 30 years of molesting his step-daughter)
and never spend even a single night in jail.
EVER.
In fact,
if the wife of the perpetrator,
and mother of the victim deems it okay,
he can even still be around his underage victim(s).
In fact,
if the wife of the perpetrator,
and mother of the victim deems it okay,
he can even have private/alone visitation with his underage victim(s).
These are the rights men have in their families
according to some state laws.
This isn't hear-say,
this isn't anecdotal information,
this is my family -
and also incidentally why "family"
doesn't necessarily mean the same thing to you
as it does to me.
There are only a handful of us who scraped by,
who escaped or evaded
or were shielded
and so these traumas are second-hand
and double-bold
because we are folded in this mix
no matter how we try and stay separated.
The Horror
is a part of each of us in the family....
whether we acknowledge it
or not.
I'm hoping to meet my brother in Vegas for his 50th Birthday.
We'll talk about everything else,
and we'll have a great time
like two laughing escapees.