flames and blame

A family of Ashes was born in the spark of a lighter and the first experimental drags on a cigarette. Unaware that he stood on his own pyre. One that had been slowly, incrementally stacked throughout the course of his life. Soaked in gasoline. Set to ignite.

It did not explode.

It imploded.
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I never knew my name till the day I felt the flame. Its forked tongue tickling my toes. Telling me I am alive with an unpleasant sensation. What is this? A thought that would soon be answered as my flickering friend caught me in his embrace and grew.

Pain! That is the word I learned. Pain... What a weak word to describe this feeling.

Agony. Oh yes. That is much more fitting. The flames scorching my flesh. Telling me I am alive.

But if this life, "What the fuck!" am I still breathing for. The stink of burnt hair and skin? Is life agony? YES!

Goodbye life. And fuck you!
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I learned my name in my fifteenth year, when I came home from a normal day at school, went into my room, turned off the lights, curled up into a ball and proceeded to unravel. Intelligence is overrated. Ignorance is bliss. But I was not stupid and on that day my naivety left me. And a realization claimed me, engulfed me, and dragged into a place of pain, confusion, and self-hatred.

On that sad day I realized that I had somehow failed to become a complete human being. How could this happen? What had I missed? How, how,how? At the time I had no obvious answer other than that I was flawed at my core. I had failed to do the one thing that should have come naturally. Become a part of humanity. Was I not human? I...had....failed.

My name was Subhuman. And I burned and drowned in depression. Who needs flames when agony can be produced so exquisitely in your own brain. My mind was built to make pain and I not only let it but fed it reason after reason to continue doing so.

Such pain. The subhuman needed to die.

My name needed to change.
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I burned to ashes and the current swept me apart making me naught but an obscure cloud. Depression is not a uniform thing. It doesn't fit any person the same way. For me it was all encompassing, blanketing all aspects of my being, distorting my every thought to reflect negatively on me. And I accepted it as truth.

Therein is the worst possible lie. For when you accept something as the truth it then becomes the norm. It is the only way to think. To do otherwise is the wrong.
And to turn around that train of thought is extremely, horridly, difficult.

And when you have little help it is damn near impossible. I had little help. Decades passed. In and out of depression. Pain, confusion, hate, filled my days and nights, waiting for a reason not to exist.
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A family is supposed to be made up by a bunch of separate individuals that stick together and stand up for each other. They may not always agree but when the hard times come they come together to provide a pool of strength that is greater than the individual.

I burned. I became ashes. I tattered and frayed. Becoming malformed, subhuman. The ashes were connected by the barest of filaments. Much like a family they were separate but there was a pool of strength waiting to pull them all together.

Like the black hole at the center of a galaxy it sits trying to pull the ashes back to the focal point. But for to long they had been listless, drifting apart and in some cases dissolving all together. Pieces of me that would never come back. I don't believe I will ever be completely whole again. A broken thing might be repaired but it will never be exactly the same as it was.

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What does a child really know? They know what immediately surrounds them. They know the now and maybe what's up tomorrow. Yes, they know their ABCs and 1 2 3's and whatever else they learn in school or elsewhere. But what do they no of emotions. How do they learn what's right or wrong. What if they are taught that everything they do is wrong? How does he build and sense of confidence or self-esteem off a foundation so askew.

Yet I was a relatively happy child. I grew up in a neighborhood filled with boys my own age or close to it. I played games and laughed and had fun. I had no idea that something might be wrong with me, that I was any different than the other boys.

I was always shy. The quiet boy in the school room. I rarely got into trouble. I must have seemed like a nice, normal child. Even as I grew older and more introverted, more antisocial no one took notice. No one cared.

I was overlooked, unseen, and It was what I wanted. It was what I deserved. It was when I felt safest.

It was wrong, on all parts.
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I love my father. But he failed me, and I blamed myself for it. Ignorance isn't bliss. It is selfishness. It is the inability to see things from a different perspective. Or in some cases the unwillingness to do so. My father ....... is forgiven. Fully. I love my father.

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My mother failed me. Simply by staying with my father. I know many people grow up with out a father and that can be a sad thing. But fathers are not perfect and mine had neither the temperament or patience to be one.

My mother is not forgiven, because there is nothing to forgive. She did the best she could with what she had. She is the main reason I am still alive.

I love her more than anyone.

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Society failed me. By not seeing me. But the world doesn't care and I am just another piece of dust clinging to it. I could be a bitter, angry man. But I refuse to be that. I wish harm to no one and have found a semblance of peace within myself.

And the world keeps turning.


............................................

I failed myself. By accepting a lie. I could have fought back. I could have rebelled against it. I could have been brave. I didn't and I payed the price.

I am a family of ashes, I am Allbee Ashes, I am Mikey, I am Mike, and to a few people I am Michael.
I'm coming back together.

I don't know what I'm going to become..................