Say You Hate Me

theme park

Have you ever thought about the butterfly effect?

Have you ever truly considered how different everyone could be if one event had not taken place?

If only you hadn't argued back to the swim coach and got kicked off the team, maybe you'd have become an Olympic swimmer. If only you hadn't fallen out with your childhood best friend, maybe you would be their plus one to the fucking grammy awards.

If only you hadn't snuck out that night to drink beers bought with a stolen ID, maybe your dad wouldn't have beat you to a bloody pulp.

What would I have been like if I hadn't been born into the mafia?

I was destined for a life of blood and gore. It was scrawled across the prologue to my story. I was born for this.

But was this all I could be?

When I was younger, there was a certain allure to being part of this business. The secrecy, the combat, the ferocity. It was a little boy's paradise.

But in the same way darkness captures the sky at night and blocks the sun, my positive perception was quickly replaced with cold, harsh reality.

The devastation of seeing limp bodies flung across the floor and blood smeared across the walls would change anyone. At first it stung. It stung hearing the tormented screams from the basement while eating my dinner, seeing the sheer aggression of my father, watching my older brother become a brutal murderer.

But, feelings aren't permanent. Actually, that's a lie.

They are permanent, more so than the ink tattooed into my skin. Feelings follow you like a shadow. Like a heavy weight upon your shoulders. Feelings mute your personality. Feelings deafen every other thing in your life. You're no longer someone who lives, you're someone who survives. It's like you're stuck, watching your life through a screen, unable to move or act, all you can do is gawk at it as your life rolls past without you. It's bittersweet being the spectator to your own life. You acknowledge the advantages: the numbness and the silence. But that could never make up for the disadvantages: the fact that you're missing out on life.

You see your classmates live life normally - without a care in the world. You imagine yourself in their position. You speculate what life could've been if your biggest worry wasn't your father's bloody fists. You're envious. You don't understand what you did to deserve this life when everyone else gets the abnormally bubbly parents who pick them up from school everyday with jubilant smile and open arms.

My dad never hugged me. I had to tiptoe on eggshells around him.

My dad never played catch with me. My dad loved whiskey more than me.

My dad never showed any affection. My dad beat me.

If only I had parents like my classmate's, maybe I'd be different.

Whether it's the blemishes that stain my skin or the violent memories that filter into my thoughts, I can't be different.

I'm stuck. Or trapped, if you will.

There's a lock and chain around my body, ensuring that I can never ever escape.

I'll always be the don of the mafia. I'll always be the surviving son. I'll always be the terrifying figure that haunts other people's stories. I'll always be the person who ends other people's stories.

I'm a cold-blooded killer. And I disgust myself.

I am exactly who everyone expected me to be.

But I want to be different.