Repressed Memories Revisited

One of my darker, more personal poems, that I feel is worth sharing.

Tears fill my eyes like well-springs over-flowing
Thought turns to action turns to momentum bursting in flames
A moment passes in a lifetime, half an hour in a second
My father stared through me with hatred in his eyes and yellow-green
Irises and I thought he envied me because I was still young enough
To know better; I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong.
I worshiped at the alter of my own self-loathing by the time I was
Old enough to realize I must have done something wrong, some guilt hangs
Me--hanged me--hung over me day in and night out, light out,
And still the slurs were tossed around, the words I tried to
Burn from my memory, promised not to say, comprised the melody 
Which woke me to greet the new day in fear that I might mess up again, 
That I might lose my own identity again behind the fervor of my father’s lies.

I feared to speak for fear of slander unbeknownst to me
How could I know? I was only 3, or was it 4,
Everything seems murky like the edge of a memory repressed,
Waking from a desperate dream where he strikes me again,
Where I try to pull him off my mom again, where I dream
Of stabbing and slitting his throat and running away in tears
Again, because sometimes we have to bite the hands that feed us
When fear and anger are all we have to clothe us.

I was a rebellious child. I was an aggressive child. I was
Afraid of myself, afraid of my parents that would promptly
Strike me if I did anything that warranted a whipping.
You call it justice, I call it shame.
I call it pain, lack of comprehension
A world in disbelief of your own imperfection
A word that causes you to shudder and lose your brea-
th and want to die and maybe dream of what it was like
if you hadn’t been born, worlds and words within I
could not speak of because I was so afraid of myself
Until now.

I couldn’t be good enough for him,
But I am and I will be good enough for me
Even he no longer exists as he was;
Age has beaten him down and taught him his place,
Whipped him into shape with the lashes he used
To lash out and abuse his family, and we call this
Child-rearing when we rear children to believe
They’re unworthy of love despite love being the author
Of their very names and the foundation of their very bodies.
We infect them with the maladies of our past
His fear of inadequacy, of his childhood pain,
Her fear of unworthiness, of an eternal pain
And hellfire and damnation to keep you honest.

Well, honestly, I’m proud not to live in silence,
Or fear of losing my pride and dignity and being 
Forced to flee and hide behind locked doors and
Scream and cry, never to be heard or helped
For tyranny in the home begets the worst fear
And loathing of all, loathing of self, loathing
And distrust and guilt--

They still plague me when I sleep
Those images still play across my mind
Like an old damaged movie projector,
All subconsciously producing the same sensations--
I awake from a sweat and feel the rush of reality’s
Cold yet comforting embrace; past is past, but it cannot be,
Will not be releasing its hold on me,
But I can change my future; you can change it too,
Just know the cycle ends and begins with you.