Ducks by the Pond

I was walking by a lake earlier this evening and I saw a flock of ducks and I remembered learning of death. As a child, I remember death, watching documentaries, seeing pictures of dinosaurs savagely devoured, seeing hyenas and lions tackle and quell wild gazelles before tearing into their once lithe flesh. I don't know how other children experienced these things, I don't know how adults think of them now. But to me, then, it was horrific. The helplessness of the zebra, the smooth femininity of the deer, the beauty of peaceful animals grazing until they were destroyed was like learning the world was a monstrous place and I hopelessly trapped inside it.

I suppose, on some level, I identified with the zebra, with the deer. Death, sex, and surrender destroyed me too. It was so long ago and I was so young, but I know my father broke me like a cat toying with a mouse, the mouse knowing it's dead but not dead yet. He played with me, provoked me, watched me struggle in no-win situations and he would laugh a savage laugh at how helpless I was and he would keep poking keep needling hurting me hurting me hurting me and I would go crazy in the horror and pain I could never seem to leave. You ask me what living in that world is like and I will tell you it is masking every ounce of your body in placating mirrors and having no hope for anything but finding some way to burn the impurities from your soul so you can stop provoking a grown man's madness.

And it is as awful when the rest of the world turns a blind eye to it and says "this can't be true, it cannot happen, you are traumatized, it was not that bad, you are depressed, it is not that bad, you are disproportionate you are broken you are ill we must not think on these things the future the present are what matter the past is the past and this cannot be true and we don't understand you are exaggerating you were a child get over it and it was so long ago and it cannot be true and you are ill and your mind is ill and you are ill." And I want to turn back to the world and say "If I am ill to see what is there and what happened happens is happening all around then I cannot imagine what sanity health and you could be."