Today is the anniversary of my father’s suicide. He used his trousers to strangle himself to death early in the morning 40 years ago today while being held overnight in the Monterey City jail’s drunk tank in California.
For most of my life, probably starting the very next year after his death, I forgot what day he died on. But, every June I’d begin to destabilize emotionally in various ways and this would come to a head by the end of the second week of July with some kind of epic breakdown—all without my remembering his death date.
Last year, on July 13th, a Monday—he died on a Monday—I suddenly remembered as my shift ended at work that he used to suffocate me in my sleep. This psychopath would cup his big hand over my little face in my sleep, closing off my airway entirely, so that I woke up in a panic, clawing and freaked out, until I passed back out again. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt his hand, I felt the absolute terror and helplessness of waking to suffocation, and I gasped and gasped for air with this vivid memory until I hyperventilated my way into the ER.
Why did he do this? I don’t fucking know. No-one in my family will even verify this memory, including my sister who has told me many times over the years that he would hold my jaw closed in my sleep when I would grind my teeth—which she now denies ever telling me. But this isn’t the resurfaced memory anyway. The intent was clearly to suffocate me unconscious, and the trauma surrounding this abuse is extreme and ongoing.
So, in memory of my father’s 40th deathaversary:
Broken
You were a broken man…
I know this.
And though you have long since
turned to ash
your broken hand still rests
upon my shoulders.
In those days I had no way
to understand you
except as something
to fear,
and terribly so.
When you were gone—
the moment I knew—
I felt relief.
Yet your touch remained.
When you were gone—
the moment I understood—
I felt gripping loss,
your grip finally loosened.
When you were gone—
the moment I grasped its meaning—
I felt searing guilt.
Your rage had been extinguished,
and could burn no more.
And when you were gone,
I never once wondered why
you never came to say goodbye
somewhere in my dreams.
Yet
I still could feel
the broken weight of your hand
pressing, squeezing, clawing
somewhere in my spirit.
You were a broken man…
And you broke your small boy
with the terrible, violent weight
of your broken hand,
a touch that reaches still—
like the sting of cigarette smoke—
from the dreaming.
So, yes, another cathartic poem. I swore some years back that I’d use poetry more for artistic, highfalutin endeavors. Because, you know, I’d like to be a more serious, highfalutin poet. But, whatever. I’m a person and I’ve been through a lot.
In the end I should consider that poetry saved my life as a teen. So maybe catharsis is also a part of giving back to the spirit of this muse.
