Anchor

I’ve not written in a while, because, well, you know…

But recently, I’ve been having so many thoughts. About you. About us. About our past. About the things that tie us together. And the things that drive us apart.

I remember as a young person with thoughts, wishing on every wishing stone that you would disappear. Not die, as such, but just cease to exist. You caused us so much pain.

As a child, things were different. You were different. The lines on your face shallower, the bark in your voice not quite there. The sting of your hand reached our bare behinds on occasion, but it was justified, you know. Well, of course you know, you were the dispenser of justice. Dad almighty.

But then the drink started getting into your head, into your eyes, into your voice, into your heart. Your hands were too shaky to lash out – thank fuck – but the words had knives sharper than the winter’s frost. And you broke us.

And then you broke our mother.

And then you broke yourself.

It had been years since we last spoke when you introduced us to the new woman in your life. We didn’t ask, but we knew where she came from. We heard the tales, we saw the evidence in our dwindling coffers.

I really don’t want to hate you, especially now that are frail and old. But some pain does not disappear. And maybe, the wishing stones have finally listened. And I am not sure I can ever forgive you for our mother. I still sometimes have flashes of your white knuckled hands around her throat, her face no more than a squelch of flesh and bone held together by blood-covered skin

There is a reason why the word for mother and the word for anchor is so similar in our tongue. She was all that kept us together. She was our reason for, well, everything.

Since that last night, when we found her body and you fled into the night, we have been untethered, floating above anything you could ever offer.

But it is over now. For you, at least. By the time this reaches you, you will be a shadow of a man, listening to these words of mine from the mouth of your whore.

As for me, I will find a new anchor, knowing that you are gone and can never again break me, or my little family.

 

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I am not participating in NaNoWriMo this year, but will be trying a short writing every day, following the prompts from  https://www.patreon.com/thequietsun