A Drunk Dracula Will Set on Fire Much Faster than a Sober One

daddy drabbles

or

"Clean Up Your Bloody Snot-Rags--They Still Cover the Floor of the Garage"

Orion’s Belt is not used to beat his children; he uses it to whip himself.  I figure this out when

I realize that the roots gnarled beneath alcoholism are oftentimes more knotted than expected. I wonder

how many necks my father had to snap before he even looked in the mirror; I wonder how many

quarts of blood he has stolen from hospitals, from blood banks, from innocent little girls--

I want to believe that he is trying to be different, but I can smell the alcohol on his breath, see the

blood vessels in his eyes reaching out and bursting, hear the slurs in his words when he says, “I love you,

Pumpkin.”  I have heard rumors about him breaking the bones of little girls and sucking out the marrow when

his supply of blood runs dry.  This is no rumor.  This is memory.  Clotted blood red in dirty            

Kleenexes on the floor, freshly

blackend and blued eye looking

at me in the rearview mirror;

Daddy is telling me he loves his little girls.  My sister and I wonder if he even loves himself but we lose

all hope when he turns back time and we see him slamming my mother into the bathroom wall, see the small

body of an unknown brother smeared on the floor, watch him lick it off the tiles and

wad it up into Kleenexes for later.  I hear he chugs

two-to-three bottles of rum a week. Cocaine smile, bloody nose, razors stupidly chucked into the recycling.

Time has fast forwarded to my mother slamming on the pink padded walls of her coffin, screaming her

throat raw, trying to dig herself free to tell us our father’s secrets, but Kaitlyn and I have long lost our

knack for necromancy.  “There is a reason,” she howls, “for the empty bottles in the recycling bin.”

“There is a reason,” she howls, “for my body decaying into flowers.”  We do not hear this.  This never

happens.  I am 13 and

trying reason with God

but no one is answering.

Orion's Belt is not used to beat his children; he used it to whip himself. I figure this out whe

I realize how likely it is that my father hates himself as much as he hates everyone else.

Author's Note

Any and all constructive criticism is welcome.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

fascinating write, but certainly one that angers me...Vampire or Human....the abuse cannot be tolerated...he should hate himself...
there is no love when it is accompanied by beatings...."my body decaying into flowers" such a good line...
i really think this is quite good...and with as many reads as there are for this piece...why no reviews?
i find that hard to understand...
j.