Author: ROCK

Hurt

Posted on by ROCK

Anguish has it’s own disguise, buried deep behind old lies; I know it’s in me, I feel it’s heat burning in an endless heap. No matter how I try to slip away, it beckons me back everyday;
Tarred and feathered, scalded skin falls from me again and again. I’ve felt this way for so very long it’s embers are like a favorite song; lyrics I can n’er forget sung in a whisper under my breath.
An old love from another time, a flame from the past, that’s softly mine. My eyes are glassy as I stare at the fire, not from it’s heat but my past which Hate devours;
A moment of me or perhaps an hour, slowly my spirit bows to it’s unwanted power. The fight began fast as I entered this world, through the canal of a woman who’d never been heard. Oh, Hurt how much can you take, from a child or a mother, who’s next at stake?
I am not alone with you I’m sure of that. I see in the eyes of strangers, a deep lost stare, where are they really, is it you in there? Oh, Hurt why do you live in a hungry baby’s cry, taking from a milkless breast, why oh why? Must you bury so deep a nest?
If I could do just one thing, it would be to eradicate everything. All that you create, your determined drive to exist in the souls of all who’ve survived. I am a warrior, you my beast, I won’t let you steal my love and feast.
You may burn and cut me from your darkened well, but I will fight you and make your hell a place that screams when I knock you down, backwards and over until you will drown.
If you try to rise again, I will recognize you over again. An endless loop of hide and seek, I’ll beat you until you can not speak. Hurt, you take away so many lives, you shorten days and cause mournful cries. You do not try to redeem yourself, you take, take, take and live on wealth.
You dictate the hearts of madmen and fool’s, no one’s too good, for you have no rules. Each scar you leave peels slowly away at the heart of humanity day by day. Oh, Hurt. It’s not just me. I am not alone with you I see.
I feel the new wind, the autumnal change and know I need to rise again. You are not my master, or keeper more. I am one step ahead, my feet on the floor. Oh, Hurt how you deceive, and take us back to memories, the ones that swell and take our hope, the ones that we run from, you envelope.
Today I see you so clear, and my tears do fall but not in fear of you at all. You stole my childhood so you thought yet I have my own trunks of good times locked. See, Hurt you are not the King, I have treasures you haven’t seen. I see laughter in places you can not go, Love all around, and you aren’t in the show. Hurt, I can not save all it’s true, the lonely starved victims you´ve kept for you, I can only rise up each day, push you down and go my way. Hurt, you are not my almighty guest, now leave as I bow to resist.
I am no Goddess nor magician, I have only my intuition. You are here to make us see, that Love will always conquer thee. So though I lay my sword down to rest, never think you’ve won this test. I may cry and sometimes falter, yet I always will stand up again at Love’s alter.

NOW. This moment. Alone.

Posted on by ROCK

I fill my head with noise, or I lose all control and stare quietly at the dark night sky without listening to myself or anyone near me. I empty my memories into little crystal well-hidden jars with tight corks. I hoard my salty burning hot tears one by one which pour from my heart. I have always kept them under a stone so heavy that noone could open them even if they did find them. Miniature memories were burnt like a branded steer into my heart and inside are cracked pitiful baby pieces of “Little Me”. I don’t know how to walk away like an old cowboy, blowing the smoke from his gun and twirl it like a baton, all the while staring at his worst enemy with a stern glaze. I am my own enemy, I am the gun, I am the smoke and all the leftovers of a deserted, dusty, vacated town. I don’t have a horse or a good pair of shoes and my bones are brittle and I am so damn tired. I feel like laying against a strong tree, letting the sun melt away my skin, watching coyotes circling, nearing me and I welcome them. I look deeply at each one straight into their hungry eyes, well knowing I could shoot them, but I don’t. I want them to ravish me and to be their best meal so I could just stop everything right here and let go of this disastrous shell of a life. My dreams are not fair. They give the scoundrels who used me and abused me the power to hurt me over and over again. I pray to that black sky, that painful scorching sun, that deep, icy cold lake to make my dreams go away. I can’t get enough of “Little Me” out. I am like a bulimic, bulging with sour chunks of pain and try desperately to rid myself of BaD DaD. I see a photo flash across the television, a father, an actor, an ideal man for the job. I want to hire a Dad to be mine. To say, I will save you no matter what. I will catch you; I won’t leave you and say ugly nasty things and scare you. I won’t get us kicked out of restaurants and throw wine bottles at the staff and mostly, I will never try to kiss you with my smelly stinky tongue drenched in alcohol. Go away you stupid memory bank. Can I have a piece of me removed to end this? What the hell does this world want from this little girl who only wanted to save the world and maybe, just maybe a bit of herself. What do I know about blogging? Nothing. What do I know about me? Everything. And that everything will be regurgitated before I get too old to die alone with it all. I will pull my self out of this lonely drifting soul and I will not stop until I can say to “ROCK”, thank you and goodbye.

The Shell of LittleMe
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Shadows Of a Father

Posted on by ROCK

Yet, I Loved Him; Shadows of a Father

Why do we love our abusers? We love them because that is all we know until we grow up and start to see who they are as people. My mother was not perfect, but one thing she did was to let me find out on my own who he was. She knew I would eventually however “Little Me” was quiet, cautious and never shared stories about father that might make her upset or intervene in my seeing him. She was practical, sensible, chatty and had begun to work in the music industry. She became so BIG in my eyes, so intense and I was truly both in awe and fear of her. Why am I speaking of her? I am certain she is to be credited for not saying then what I know now. “Every check your father sends us bounces.” Or, “He lied to your Aunt and grandmother and said he bought your Brownie uniform when I paid your dues!” The lies were always there. Before me, before her and would continue after us.

I was in second grade and I could walk across my baby sitters backyard, jump a brook and climb a grassy field to school. Mother and I still lived in the small brick house he left us in and BaD DaD had moved to Philadelphia. I remember my teacher, Mrs. Jones. She was very sick and we always had substitutes. I loved school but I hated the smell of my tin lunchbox, the gray horrid bathrooms, and was afraid of the playground where kids were rough and swinging clackers around until eventually they were banned. I was an extremely sensitive little human. Mother was beautiful and had our clothes sewn to match often. I received a lot of attention from the teachers in my school as I was always well dressed, had a mother in the music business and a larger than life, adventurous father who I talked about all the time. This memory is from the first day he had ever come to my school; it was autumn and soon Halloween.

My mother left my olive green suitcase just inside the classroom door and had a conversation with the teacher. Today, for the very first time my father would come to pick me up in school and we’d fly to Philadelphia for the only Halloween I remember with BaD DaD. I was beyond thrilled and again, he was my idol, my whole heart jumped and cheered for him. “Little Me” pushed all bad things into the dark stairwell and locked them away. This memory was the first time that I cried on Halloween and the last time. I would grow up and see him being a fake Good DaD to half-siblings and feel sad when he had no memory of “Little Me”. He never remembers because he was usually very, very drunk and lies can’t be remembered when sober. That’s why TRUTH pushed me down the steps, slammed the door and locked it. TRUTH would later become the reason I still remain the proverbial “Black Sheep” and am shunned by his younger than me wife from France. I was a ticking bomb ready to tell all and he knew I would do it. He often said as if I were his confidant, ” SHE” doesn’t know about this or that so don’t bring it up. And she would hate me and grow to barely tolerate me because he groomed her to adore him and believe him and convince her I was a horrible person. My idol whose shadow I lived in for 50 years would throw me away because I grew into an ethical, kind and genuine woman. This shadow of me, in this memory is so painful that I hate “Little Me” for remembering it all together.

I recall watching the clock pensively. When the big hand was on twelve and the little hand on two my idol would arrive for all my classmates to see. Mother had packed my halloween costume and all of my neccessaries neatly and I was wearing a winter white courderoy dress, warm tights and my floral embroidered knee high brown boots. Other kids did not dress like me. One thing my parents had in common was style. Alas, the time came and there in the doorway he stood; eyes full of happy tears I ran into his arms and he picked me up, swung me high and kept me there. I looked back and down at my classroom as if they were a theater audience and felt such pride. I thought, SEE, I DO have a father! The teacher was not Mrs. Jones; she was sick again so the substitute and two more who knew my mother came out into the hallway to meet him. He was dressed in the coolest brown leather coat and a beige turtleneck with wool tweed pants. He was so very tall and I could see they all were in awe of his handsome, mesmerizing ways. God only knows what he told them he was doing as far as his latest brilliant idea for quick money. I would later come home to mother very sad. Mother said I always was seemingly depressed when I came home to after a visit and she thought it was from my missing him. I didn’t talk. I was well groomed by BaD DaD.

I as always will help “Little Me” tell you what happened. She wasn’t missing him; she was disappointed.

ROCK is firm that she can only tell one bad story at a time or she will never get out of the cold stairwell. She is on a step that has wet fall leaves, huge ones; they are from a magnolia tree. Darkness envelopes her and an empty plastic pumpkin with a black plastic handle she stares at.

“Little Me” is in Media, Pennsylvania. “Daddy, this is gong to be the best Halloween ever; I am going to be a roaring lion!” Up we go onto a trolley car. “Hold on to the pole and I will lift your suitcase up and down and all around when people get on and off”. “Little Me” remembers the excitement of her first trolley car ride through Philly, the colors of all kinds of people, the big, brown brick buildings and watching the doors open and shut repeatedly. So many colors greeting her with a perfect autumn bright sun setting as she neared BaD DaD’s building. She doesn’t remember with whom but she remembers they were in a small car, and a woman with short dark hair drove, (his type). BaD DaD’s building was not brown, it was white stone and had a big yard full of the biggest leaves I’d ever seen. We had to climb up, up, up to the very tippy top to get to his apartment. There were no curtains and the light was everywhere. Along one wall was a small table, some hard chairs and the rest was beautiful long windows, the kind that are in old films. BaD DaD had a mattress on the floor in another room on brown hardwood floors and the bathroom had teeny tiny tiles, not linolium like at home. It felt empty and I only had brought my doll I slept with, a clown actually named BoBo. In fact, I would name lots of pets and dolls the same name with a slight variation for years to come. BaD DaD sat my suitcase on the floor and took me down to an apartment to meet a woman. She is a school teacher (he said) and very pale with black hair. She gives me old dolls made of porceline to play with and comes up to us for dinner every night. Who was she? BaD DaD spent a lot of time on the telephone or in her apartment and I watched black and white television on the mattres on the very hard floor. FOCUS! ROCK wants “Little Me” to not be so detailed, to get on with it to heal. It’s not that easy; never tell someone who has lived through much trauma to get on with it. So, bored and lonely I wander around the nearly empty big room. The sun was shining even though it was cold outside and I opened one of the long windows to look down. I held two dolls and they take turns walking across the window sill, looking over and I speak for them. Their heads are wobbly and like eggshells. I hear BaD DaD open the door to the apartment and I am relieved as I was a bit scared in another new place and he often left me for a long period of time. I was startled and as I turned to run to him one of the pale egg head dolls fell out the window. BaD DaD stopped smiling and didn’t hug me. He yelled at me then hit me hard. He had never hit me that I could recall, and it was in and of itself not so tragic. It was not on purpose the doll fell so I cried. He made me tell the woman I was sorry and give her the doll that wasn’t broken back and go pick up the pieces of the cracked egg head doll ithat was scattered amongst the thick, damp magnolia tree leaves. Each day was long, lonely and boring with BoBo now ,the television, the mattress on the floor and boxes of saltines, or chips, cracker jacks, and root beer. He would leave me for what seemed whole days. At last it was Halloween and I was beyond excited. I had imagined for weeks how he would hold my tiny hand, see my costume and it was to be more special than any other day in my entire seven year old life. This night would make up for all the time I was sad, missing mother and alone. That night the woman from downstairs came up for dinner again. I remember eating french fries and studying a green glass bottle with wax built up in different shades along the side; a candle was lit and I gazed at the blue and yellow flame. It was cosy, but BaD DaD would change into his new hard face again. I was dipping my fries into ketchup with my fingers and he said in an ugly voice, ” Don’t you know how to use a fork?” I was embarrassed and the woman whose pale egg doll I broke by accident stared at me. I pleaded to be excused and to get ready for trick or treating as it was becoming very dark. They sat at the table and NOW I know they were drunk. Bottles were full of red, smelly liqued that looked like the same one the candle was burning in. I went into the room with the mattress and opened my suitcase and put on my costume; I was a paper lion. ROAR! Grrrrrr! I had a hard time sitting and waiting and the television rolled and rolled and the screen was fuzzy. I laid flat on my back holding my plastic pumpkin with BoBo and fell asleep. I woke with a jolt to really loud music and a weird smell. I went out to BaD DaD and the woman; they are laughing and smoking white cigarettes, playing records and dancing by drippy wax candlelight. I begged again and finally he said ina new voice, a kind of silly messy voice, “Okay!” At last! Down the steps we went, BaD DaD jumping them two at a time and being really funny then he put his hand around mine just as I had imagined it would feel. When he opened the door it was pitch black outside. We walked on a sidewalk to houses that had heavy metal knockers but I did not see any trick or treaters anywhere. I did not see pumpkins lit up or hear laughter. BaD Dad insists I go up to a scary dark door alone but has to help me when I can’t reach the knocker. A porch light comes on and a woman opens the big door and looks at my father towering over me from behind. I say “trick or treat” and growl. I will never ever, ever forget this moment. The lady is grumpy and is scolding my father. ” t’s eleven o’clock! Why are you out so late?” She had no candy left and told him I should be asleep. We leave and walk some more and finally see a house with lights on. BaD DaD stands on the street and sends me up and I can see it is a party with lots of big people; they laugh and give me extra candy and wave at my father and slam the door. We walked back home, BaD DaD was smelly like the bottles he and the woman drank with the red stink. When we climb the stairs he makes me knock on the pale egg doll woman’s door and show her my candy. She gives me some cookies and follows us up to BaD DaD’s apartment. He is laughing and they are drinking more from the red stink candle bottles and he tells me to go to bed. I have trouble getting out of my costume and rip it. I was a terrible lion; no one noticed at all. I looked in my olive green suitcase and found a little bag. It was a note from my mother that said, “Boo!” and it had bubblegum, the hard pink kind that takes hours to chew and a Hershey’s bar. I ate the Hershey bar and hid the wrapper and so missed my beautiful mother. She always made me take a bath, brush my teeth and helped me into my soft pajamas; she always read me stories and tucked me in. I fell asleep with BoBo, the gray light from the television and BaD DaD and the woman laughing and dancing with a Jim Croce album on.

Yet, I loved Him.

NOW;My Need to Save the World.

Posted on by ROCK

I am a wife, a loyal one and a second one. I am a ridiculously annoying overprotective mother. I’ve listened to things I didn’t want to hear my entire life because that’s what I needed as a child. Uncensored communication. My only child I adopted, not at all a surprise since I had this need and sense of responsibility to save everyone and everything from a young age. I was born into a harsh world, one that did not stop to understand extreme empaths. Everything I do comes from an inner drive to please. All of my past I summonsed to come forward because in my attempt to heal it felt as if I were drowning. “Little Me”, I love you.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Pexels.com

Little Me Comes Forward

Posted on by ROCK

ROCK will narrate before she speaks to catch you up. Despite BaD DaD’s behavior which almost led him to being incarcerated for statutory rape ( sex with a minor), her mother let her see him eventually. A great Uncle and “little me’s” paternal grandmother came up with an outrageous plan to convince the livid father of the aforementioned minor that BaD DaD was truly in love with the minor and was slipping into severe mental decline from being seperated from her. It all started when he was working as a “gopher” for a political campaign for John Jay Hooker, whose slogan was, “He’s Our Man”. Her parents were married and some campaign parties were held at the tiny rented house in Nashville. One of the guys he met would eventually be called “Uncle Stu” by “Little Me”; he was the older brother of the teen her father was having an affair with. The girl’s father was a very influential and wealthy man and determined to send BaD DaD to prison when he found out about this activity. How he found out, I do not know and doesn’t matter. The plan was BaD DaD (and BaD HUSBAND, SON, BROTHER, PERSON) would feign insanity to the point of being admitted to a mental hospital. He did so and was truly convincing. In all of this true craziness both “Little me’s” hard working mother and the minor girl’s father began to go visit him. Here is where Sgt. Bilko comes in. Apparently BaD DaD would stare and call for “Sgt. Bilko” while wandering in circles around his room. Sgt. Bilko who was a comic strip character in the Tennessean newspaper drew quite a lot of attention. BaD DaD was quite the showman and succeeded in winning the minor’s father’s affection. The father even came to see him while BaD DaD’s wife was leaving off clean underwear and clothes. She was literally standing in the same room watching her husband, her high school sweetheart, her rapist and her daughter’s father perform; she was fully aware of BaD DaD’s thespian talent as the minor’s father and mother brought him flowers and a gift. Holy McFuck BaD MaN! He was amazing (OSCAR!) in this role of pretending that he was going to die without this girl. Eventually “Little me’s” mother had to sign him out as his guardian and further humilate herself. He actually went back to the little house for awhile. Meawhile, the minor girl was not at all interested in pursuing marriage or a relationship with him but BaD DaD had to play out the game to keep his ass out of trouble. Again, no one matters to a #narcissist and #sociopath but themselves. A sociopath knows full well what they are doing is wrong, they just don’t care. They are out to make their world a better place, not yours. If you cross them and they need you as a frontliner they will do whatever it takes to convince you that YOU are what they need. They will cry, lie and continue to try to keep you in their closest circle. They will convince you that YOU are the ONLY PERSON who understands them and you will believe them. Yet what they need you for are money, sex, constant attention, total control and much more; they are excellent at roleplaying their way through life and all relationships. As soon as the divorce papers were filed by “Little me’s” mother and cleared he drove the minor to some courthouse with her father’s consent to marry. The poor girl was forced by her father and Sgt. Bilko to marry. She didn’t want it; she even tried to escape by grabbing his car wheel and forcing him to pull over so she could get out. That’s when it became clear, he was in charge and she was stuck. The father had an apartment above his estate’s garage where they would stay until they moved into a small apartment when minor, NOW a Major in Bilko’s bunkers got pregnant. I don’t care about all the details. I care about the Truth. I am the Truth. I am ROCK.

The #emotionalabuse and the continual #inappropriatesexualconduct which would haunt not just “little me” but without exaggeration, hundreds of other women for life, I care about. The women, the boys and girls, the abused and used, the hurt Bilko caused for so many friends, family and total strangers. My main role though is to guard forever, “Little me”.

Uncle Stu, despite not being the most scrupulous of characters would eventually come to “little me’s” rescue. Ironically despite his only goals for years were to cover for Bilko by assisting him in putting the “con” in eCONomy and creating whacked up fraudulant business plans, he mainly just hung around and smoked weed, scored cocaine and basically chauffeured “little me” around looking like a chunky version of Charles Manson. Somewhere underneath all of his long, curly hair, dark unkempt beard was one line he didn’t cross that would later benefit “Little me.”

NOW “Little me” is yanking on my pants leg wanting to speak so I will step aside and let her tell you in her own little voice a disturbing memory. I will help her as she can become very scared still. It’s called, “triggered” or “triggering” in #CPTSD, that is Complex post traumatic stress disorder.

“Little Me” is very, very upset. “Little me” is crying and has been slipping further into her dark room. This is not good. She needs to crawl out of this dank space.

“I was sleeping in a big bed alone while BaD DaD was not in the room; he was with the new blonde lady. I woke up because a flash of light was in my eyes!”; (indeed it was a flashlight), “and the bed was moving. There was giggling and I looked under the blankets and saw BaD DaD and the blonde lady naked and BaD DaD was on top of her.” “Little me” screamed and cried out, “STOP, STOP!” (yet they kept laughing.) “Little me” is blank. I am sorry “Little Me”.

She said she wanted her mother. She was very young, maybe four and had flown all by herself on an airplane to the other city to see him. When she returned home she told her mother and she remembers that she was very afraid, perhaps she might get in trouble for what she saw. This is when she first realizes she had a good Dad and a BaD DaD and begins to study and slowly discern between them. She didn’t know her mother called and asked BaD DaD what happened; later when she was very grown up she would ask her mother about it and find out that BaD DaD had lied to her mother, again. “Little me” also remembers shower time with BaD DaD and much, much later she would worry about a future half-sibling who was told to shower with BaD DaD, too.

“Little Me” must rest and I must take care of her. Outside it is raining in the NOW world, it is dark, cold and gray. This is how “Little Me” feels. ROCK will cover for her; ROCK never let’s her down.

I Remember You

Posted on by ROCK

I remember you, and you remember, too

I say don’t say it, now I don’t play it

Noooooo more,no more

See, I don’t want a big show or to know so and so’s

Fame ain’t impressive, fakery is massive

I used to need your love but now, NOW

I don’t want to know you, who says I have to

Your lies are life long, a sad man’s dying song

Noooooo more, no more

Not afraid to say it, I let you play it,

You tried to hide me but God stayed beside me

And Now I can remember you, and you can remember, too

Mmm, I say, don’t lie to me, you can try it and deny it, but it’s real

It’s real to you. In your final days, your life, a bitter haze

Will you face it, or erase it? Will you cry or continue to lie?

I won’t seek you, I want to leave you

With your memories, you and God can see.

You weren’t a good man, held a knife in your backhand,

Led a new flock to follow you, left me to be mocked, it’s true

Now I’m stronger, can’t hide no longer

I’ll be standing tall as you fade and fall

Will you save face or ask for grace?

They say dying cell by cell, one sees heaven or one sees hell.

No more spotlights, just a white light, closing in, sin by sin.

By “Little ME”

Wrapping Up Cannes; Sociopath at Play

Posted on by ROCK

AngryEyes and I finally found BaD DaD who’d apparently been too busy to answer my calls. Why did he ask me to come if he wasn’t planning on spending time with me. Insert a sad face. “He” immediatly disliked AngryEyes, but, big BUT, he needed AngryEyes to over hear french conversations as he was always trés paranoid. That’s what happens when people are lying and denying, they are always using their frontliners and know we are needed. “He” had met a french young woman, younger than me, at a perfume shop. He wanted us to go out with them to a disco and then later in the week it would be her birthday and she had invited us all to her party. Strange I thought, why would this young woman not even my age invite him to a party; but hey a party sounded cool at the time. AngryEyes is happy BaD DaD is buying all the booze and his eyes are perhaps, for that short time, twinkling with amusement. BaD Dad was quite the entertainer; I was so skilled at following his different personas that I just ignored his game of playing the role of a filthy rich and ever so distinguished, tall American man now. The rented convertible porsche and staying at The Carlton (or whatever the biggest and most expensive hotel in Cannes was) seemed perplexing since he’d moved five times in under two years. I was to be staying with him there and he’d dumped me in the California strong woman’s hotel room. Could it be he was using me? Gee, back home he had a piece of plywood covered with a white table cloth to eat off of. He had just kicked out or been left by a bitter chinese puerto rican woman who wouldn’t allow me to wash my clothes or open the refridgerator door myself. How did he weasel himself into Cannes? I stopped caring as part of me still had hope he would become more stable mentally. I had to watch out for him around my little sister often. I cooked her food so he wouldn’t take her out to eat, get drunk and drive back with her in the car. He did that with me and I would not let him do it with her. Yet, he did, sometimes anyway.

We meet the french woman and she was exactly his type, short dark hair, dark eyes (preferably) and she had a handsome beauty, almost a boyish charm. Her skin was brown and warm just like AngryEyes. She was thin and I did love her big smile as well as the way she laughed immediatly. The eve of her party AngryEyes and I went along with BaD DaD in his cool car down the boulevard along the sea to find the party. We, that is AngryEyes and I, were quick to feel outrageously uncomfortable as we were into the artsy punk scene, “The Cure” and a “Peter Gabriel” kind of world. Our parties did not play french disco tunes. Yikes. In all black we sat drinking wine and cutting off huge chunks of cheese while the main party gathered around her and stood grilling outside. She had on a very strikingly 80’s pastel dress that had ballon like shoulders and BaD DaD followed her around like a hound dog on a hunt for rabbits.

Then, Bad DaD appears before us where we have sunk into a very soft sofa and whispers something in my ear. “Can you and your friend go listen to see if they are talking about me? I think they are.” Ah-ha, there’s the real reason he asked us to go along; clear as a bell. He needed ears and a back-up plan. We glided through the laughter and stood by the grill. “What are they saying?”; BaD DaD looked like he would start with one of his manic attacks so we tried to inch in closer to people we didn’t know. The handsome young woman was talking with a very beautiful man and the man kept looking over her shoulder at BaD DaD. Finally near her and this man we hear that the steaks should be ready in about fifteen more minutes and it appeared he was looking back at BaD Dad because he’d been staring him down in a odd manner. I think the man felt as uncomfortable as we did. We relayed the information back and BaD DaD was relieved. He told us that he would drive us back to the California woman’s hotel and that the next morning at 10 a.m. he would pick us up and we would all drive to Nice where he would catch his flight back to the states. He said we could use the car for another week. That did sound fun! It was all paid for and we just needed to drop it off and catch our train back north.

The next morning we are all packed and I say goodbye to the sunny California woman and thank her for letting us stay in her room. She says, “just so you know, the room was put in your father’s name after he left me no choice. It’s his bill to pay.” I called the concierge at BaD DaD’s hotel and he said that he had checked out and there was an envelope for me. Now what. Shit, shit, shit. More McFuckery to deal with. AngryEyes sits with the suitcases and I walk down to the sea, down the boulevard and into The Carlton. I asked for the envelope. I opened it and began to cry and lose my breath. It read, “Running late, Love D.O.D.”, his signature for Dear Ole Dad. We had no money to pay for the hotel! He’d conned his own daughter AGAIN! He was gone. He knew that we would not catch on to his scheming; this was the game all along. I slowly walk back up to the other hotel and tell AngryEyes. His response was, “Putain”.

Somehow AngryEyes had a friend wire him money to pay a 900 US dollar hotel bill; a bill that wasn’t ours to pay. BaD DaD invited us there and knew we had no money for such a place. I had to pay for it by getting more hostility from AngryEyes, he refused to buy us tickets back. He said we would hitch hike back to Nantes from Cannes. And that’s what we did. He made us sleep under bushes by the highway and live outside and refused to speak to me. He repeated over and over “I want my money back from that asshole”. What kind of a person does this to anyone, much less their own daughter? I had no self esteem and was scared. I needed AngryEyes. My own father set me up, used me again and he had NO regrets. I will tell more about the Real Life confrontation when I am able.

Inside Me with ROCK

ROCK says, “Enough!”. Too many bad memories will make “little me” sick again. Thank you ROCK. I feel like dirt. Dirt feels better probably. I am a piece of lousy, wet, trash blown up aganst a metal fence, behind some weeds and trees by the highway. I am cold and it’s not the first time BaD DaD did such a thing. I slither up against my inner wall; I’ve fallen down a few flights of stairs and must hide and brood for awhile now.

AngryEyes; a Fraudulent Kind of Love.

Posted on by ROCK

After staying two or so nights with the sunny California strong woman, she tells me she is moving into a colleague’s room as my french male friend had now arrived to meet my BaD DaD. I will refer to this person as “AngryEyes”. AngryEyes was indeed very angry at himself, his THEN, his PAST and deep sexuality conflicts; AngryEyes was full of hate and love toward me and even said why, I was not a gay man, ( he came out to me after I slept with him in Paris after a Laurie Anderson performance). He was in love with me and hated me for it. He was even angrier at the dysfunctional sad world from which he came. Raised by his father, a bigoted, stammering alcoholic who was unable to love him or his mother and sisters, he had never fully shined. None of his childhood friends knew he was gay nor did his family. His mother was an overworked, red cheeked, Catholic who sought no way out of their farming village which was about an hour outside of Nantes. She wore dowdy dresses over her short and stout build and everyday, wearily clad in handsewn aprons, she did chores sun up to sun down. The washing machine was outside under a wobbly semi tin roof that covered the open aired space and only could wash with cold water. She’d hang her muttering husband’s navy blue work jumpsuits out on a rope strung line near the peach trees. With wooden pegged pins she neatly hung rows of men’s checkered boxers, her own large white cotton under garments and lots of black socks. She wore one of two proper dresses to mass twice weekly, came home and dutifully rinsed out her knee high nylons by hand and hung them over a metal towel rung in the tiny bathroom. She would hang carefully her church clothes beside a pea green wool coat covered in plastic. In her closet were two pair of shoes, brown leather flats that tied just at the bend of her forefoot and ankle and a slippery, shiny, white pair of slip ons. The laundry told a story in it’s simplicity. It fluttered in the wind and the neighbors could see, she may be poor and married to a nasty man, but she was God fearing and clean. There were no frilly blouses or pretty colors, just the plain daily wear of plain lonely people. No one came by her doorway to visit very often except a young woman who was going back to school to be a nurse. I knew her as Gigi. She confided that once she finished her studies she would leave her husband who only thought of football and spent most nights drinking beer in the village pub. I saw mutual desperation in each of their eyes yet nothing more was spoken about. I liked Gigi who’d grown up with AngryEyes and along with other farming family friends from this idyllic countryside. We’d sit with wine, make fires and gather to share nonsense mostly. Gigi had a much loved black dog, a hapless breed that followed her everywhere. Across from her lived Madame Vinget who was the matron of this portion of the village. Madame Vinget lost her husband when young and never had children. She did have a dachsund she called Chou-pete but when she had had a little too much of her homemade pear or peach liquer she called him inside with a slur that sounded like “Tu-petes” which means in english, “You fart”. Madame Vignet called me in more than once to taste her strong liquer and always pointed out that she had indeed been many places other than the village, Le Bois Jahan. One night after a ridiculous game of hide and seek in complete darkness AngryEyes and I jumped a fence and heard some loud snorts; we were near some large angry bulls. We warned Gigi not to come for us as we were knee deep in cow dung and decided to bolt for the lone asphalt road that led to the church and town center. Gigi’s dog barked and chased alongside the fence seperating us from them and just as we came to the road we saw headlights flash, the sound of a horn and then a painful cry from Gigi. Her sweet dog had been hit by a car and she began screaming in that deep, remourseful way that some people do when they lose someone they love suddenly. Without much thought I scooped the bloody critter into my arms and we rushed to AngryEyes parent’s teeny stone house. I laid the loyal canine on the freshly mopped floor and gave him first aid by covering both his nose and his mug with my mouth. He began to breathe and opened his eyes and Gigi cried happily for just under three minutes as she held him close. Her joyful tears turned to those of grief once more as he coughed up blood and died in her arms. She ran to her husband who never hung around any of us and he blamed her for being a stupid bitch; what did she expect to happen if running along the road in complete darkness? AngryEyes could also show tremendous sensitivity; while the husband slammed the door in his wife’s face, AngryEyes went for a shovel then returned to the unhappy couple’s backyard and dug a hole. The husband never came out or ever acknowledged any of it. With newspaper wrapped around Gigi’s dog AngryEyes gently took the dog and placed him in his grave. There was love in the village after all and an understanding that most people were rarely happy.

Outside AngryEyes parent’s little white stone house chickens ran amuck and wild cats begged for food. The once smiling bride with warm dark hair milked cows, sheared sheep, and more than once I saw her grab a chicken by the neck and swing it around fiercely only to casually drop it by the kitchen door to be plucked later. Cats would be scared off by the stomping of her feet inside black rubber boots. The fowl’s feathers would blow about the grassless, meek courtyard signaling to others what their next meal would be. In time she worked her way back to the stone house doorway where she often would sit with coffee or in this case, to pluck the unlucky Clucker. Perhaps this would be her only rest of the day. I eyed her taking a pause now and then and she’d hold her face up into the sunlight, eyes closed and seemed somewhat peaceful. The stone doorway led directly into the tiny sparce kitchen. A wooden oblong table sat in the middle of the perhaps 50 square meter room. A gas stove, white porcelain sink and a  small mustard colored refrigerator were lined up against the back wall. There was a small sideboard for her to chop and knead and pummel out meal after meal. Her hands were plump and chafed, her brown eyes gentle and subservient, rarely caught mine. She spoke in a whisper and at each meal she placed a large decanter of red wine in the middle of the table and a pitcher of water. The other staples, a baguette or two with strong cheeses and butter, endive salad with blood red vinegar and olive oil, and potatoes boiled in their skin were carefully arranged. The chicken was butchered into smaller pieces and sat in the same pan it was baked in, at the exact same place where the main course would always be, that is, directly in front of her husband’s plate. Meals were interchanged with hearty portions such as pork cutlets, an unknown large fish with the head still on, a pot of stew with undetectable ingredients or a souffle. She then did all the washing up and swept the bread crumbs in one swift move of her hand onto the kitchen floor where she would then sweep briskly and then wet mop every night. Her husband left immediatly after every meal to stand by the barn in one of his blue jumpsuits, in black clogs and a dirty gray wool hat with a small rim to smoke hand rolled cigarettes and drink until bedtime. Once, when AngryEyes and I were poking around in his father’s corner of the barn we found on top of a tall cupboard stacks of magazines with naked women spreading their legs wide apart and AngryEyes shouted, “Putain” and continued to rummage through each one surprised by his belligerent father’s stash. I was not at all surprised; my own BaD DaD had heaps of porn he never bothered to hide from me; “He” kept stacks of Hustler and Playboy sitting on the back of his and my former and beloved stepmother’s toilet tank. (Yes, in time we will get to those days says “little me”). Somewhere between my life with BaD DaD and AngryEyes haunting solemn stare he held while he sat across from his drunken father, we understood each other’s pain and the dark memories of our youth that were yet to be explored. In time these memories would envelope us.

Go on! Tell Them!

Posted on by ROCK

NOW. Swirls of emotions and pain blur my senses; I tell “little me” to shut up, for the love of GOD, shut up! “Little me” persists as always and shows me vivid memories; “little me” is flipping through a trashy magazine like she was at a seven-eleven with no intention of buying it. We have both a gift and a curse, an ability to remember and see good and bad experiences, sometimes down to the smallest of details. She’s pushy; I am retreating down a few steps slowly, edging away from the crack of light gleaming from underneath the stairwell door. My heart wants to be happy and block it all out again; ROCK takes over me. Check Mate! “Little me” moves a pawn. Shut the hell up “little me” or ROCK will crush you. You aren’t friends; ROCK is your own stone cold stare, your unwanted protector and ROCK will go to all extremes to keep you quiet. “Little me” has a tear; she knows that the one who hurt her the most deserves to be smothered in Truth. Truth that makes one ignite inside and burn slowly; “He” doesn’t suffer and maybe never will. Narcissists hold tight to their flock, that is their Feeders. They slip behind them and they become the frontline of the battle between Truth and Lies. I was once on the frontline, a Hider and a Feeder. When “He” did BaD DaD things I studied him and held his secrets; I knew when he was using others, charming new people with his routine of lies and making them feel like the most wonderful being ever to cross his path. That’s “grooming”. One is so enamoured by BaD DaD’s gloating over them that before they can blink twice they are pulled onto the frontline.

I am beginning to see more notes. I choose one ripped from a hotel room notepad. I decide to read just one, but only one.

ROCK frowns at “little me”; “Now look what you have done; it’s all your fault you stupid child! If you could just let her be for one godforsaken day. “Little me” puts the note in my hand and says, “open it; hurry”. This step is angry, hot, like putting a finger into the path of a steaming kettle. It’s from a woman, a woman who “He” treated like the filth on your boots after walking through swamps of grayish muck that “He” had forced her to tread through. It reads, ” No one in my life has ever talked to me like this. EVER!” I am in my early twenties, I know the ropes here. I comfort her. How many crying women have come to me since my early years? I am an expert on “BaD DaD”. I keep looking away from everything because I can not grow up and deal with Truth at the same time. The woman and I are sitting in her hotel room in Cannes. Yes, that Cannes. “He” decides in one of his manic episodes he is a famous film maker. “He” is doing his “ConMan McFuckery”. I had gone to France on my own, an escapist move, a “run or fry” move. I saved money, sold my car that beautiful lady, Mother, had bought me. That did not make her happy; I am sorry Mother. “He” just wanted me to go away so he could bring home and try out woman after woman and so I did. He told me I should go when I asked him what he thought. Yes, I actually asked his opinions; they were always in his best interest. I had no sense of self, no desire to know “little me” and I drank a lot of alcohol to hide from myself. A lot. I went to France where I remet a young guy who I had helped out when he was touring the US; I didn’t have a plan. He was very bad. I didn’t care. ROCK always took over. I let this broken young man do horrible things to me and it all was familiar; all the boyfriends who I was drawn to were bad to me. I deserved it; I was a pig and a whore and unworthy of goodness. BaD DaD taught me that over the years. ROCK is causing me to bleed again; ROCK is shaving away a layer of my thick skin. “Little me” keeps my hand clasped around the note. ROCK is hurting me. “READ IT!” shouts “little me!”

The woman was beautiful and sunny with cute, short, reddish blonde hair; she was from California. She was at the Cannes film festival looking for children’s films and new young adult series. Her name has faded but not her face or her glow. She encountered him. They had drinks and dinner and laughs and BaD DaD introduced us. “He” was using her, but I did not know how. “He” stayed at the Grand Hotel; the most expensive in Cannes. “He” had called me from where I was staying in Nantes and bought me a train ticket down to see him. He asked me to bring my french abuser; he would be necessary as a frontliner to over hear conversations in french and to repeat them back to BaD DaD. Yet, first he wanted me to come alone. I went as summonsed. Once there I walked along the avenue and into the Grand Hotel; I was dressed in all black with heavy black eyeliner and frosted tips on my spiky short hair. It was “little me” hiding behind the Punk and Drunk poet wannabe. “He” saw me; he was sittting with a famous senator. He briefly introduced us and then stuck a wad of cash in my hand and said for me to go buy new clothes and then go to his room and shower and change. I bought all blue. A blue long-sleeved shirt that was way to large on me; tight light blue jeans and then I went to get drunk. I didn’t know why I was there. What was my purpose, my assignment this time? Beautiful daughter attracts powerful men. Beautiful daughter has beautiful friends. Beautiful daughter was groomed to be of service, to Feed, to scout, to never speak or question. Beautiful daughter was flat lining through each moment.

The sunny, California lady and BaD DaD take me with them up into the hills of Antibes. We eat at a tiny restaurant and a very handsome young man sees me. This young man drives a very expensive car, has perfect teeth and is from Nice, he said he was part Italian and French. This young man joins us and my BaD DaD buys bottle after bottle of expensive wines and lies and jokes and the whole teeny restaurant has eyes on him; on us. He was doing his manic famous wealthy American thing. I didn’t care; I just laid my head on the sunny California lady’s shoulder and smiled. The young man asks for permission to take us out that night dancing. Cannes never stops. People just do more cocaine and keep going. Maybe there are a few real people there, but BaD DaD only uses them to get closer to his goals; all of his aims are to conquer. “He” gets what he wants. We all go, the disco lights are spinning, the dark floor and walls reflect the mirage of colors onto them and the beat is “boom, boom, boom”, repeat. I get dizzy and the Nice, polite guy walks me back to the Grand Hotel. He says goodnight and asks if I can have dinner with him the next night. I say yes.

“He” never comes back to the room. I assume he is with sunny, California at her hotel. I wake and shower and go down to get strong coffee in all blue and walk across the street to the beach. I sit and wait. I begin to wander inside. I feel a stir of sadness, a push to cry out. ROCK saves me and we go to the hotel bar. I sit alone on a large sofa overlooking the meditteranean and drink copious amounts of red wine. The stir inside quells. Finally, BaD Dad shows up. I tell him to remember we are to meet the Nice, polite guy. The nice, Nice guy. The wealthy prospect in pursuit of me. “He” says I should go to California lady’s hotel and get ready and he will meet us later.

I do. She waits with me and kindly does my make-up. She is a smart and a fun woman and I like her. She is real. A real woman working in the real world in children’s films. She tells me we will be late if “He”, the ManicMan, the EgoAsshole, the LunicLiar, the NastyNarc, the ConCrazedFucker doesn’t show up soon. She has slept with him; she thinks he is dating her seriously and that she is special. I always hate this part. I have seen it, inhaled this type of scenario so many times I am numb. Sunny California woman calls BaD DaD. He screams at her, (I can hear him, too. He is so loud and ugly she pulls the telephone away from her ear). The note reminds me what she said, “Oh my God! No one has ever spoken to me like this in my life.” He told her to never contact him again, to fuck off and leave him alone. He called her a stupid cunt and more. She cried and I stare at her. I am this sick man’s daughter. I awkwardly try to hug her and she reaches out to me. She asks me what she had done. I still stare. She opens a bottle of good white wine and we drink it fast. Then, because she was real, STRONG and Truth was her light she took my hand and said, ” I will chaperone you; I will take you on your date”. What? She knew who she was. She saw herself. Would I ever be that strong? Would I ever be able to say, “STOP!”? So, with the nice, Nice, young man, we went to dinner in the teeny restaraunt and he paid for us both. After, she said I could sleep in her room after I called and called my BaD Dad’s room, left message after message with the concierge and “He” never replied. I was now unneccesary. At least for that one night.

I’ve put the note down. There is more but ROCK is very clear now. I will have to move away from this step and sit in my safe space. The walls are going up like chrome lined windows, ROCK has hold of the handle. I imagine I am in an old mercedes. ROCK locks all the doors. I can still see out but for now ROCK must stop my Truth; ROCK glares angrily at “little me” who can only sit and wait. Just before the lights are dimmed I see “little me” with tears whelping up in her innocent eyes. She wants me to love her.