Adventures in the Deep

I wish I knew why death and black metal make me so sleepy. I used to -and still do sometimes- worry about my considering myself a metalhead being valid, because I can't listen to bands with much growling. I'd like to, but it puts me out like a light.

But this isn't why I'm writing. I'm writing because.. well, I've things on my mind. Other things.
I'm tired of absolutes. I'm tired of hearing "love is the answer". They're lies. I am not saying, that we should not try to love most things. I believe that tolerance, respect, love, compassion, that all of those things are important. But love is not always the answer. Sometimes, cold hard vengeance is. Sometimes, cruelty is, anger is. Do not love the hand that strikes you, grab it, stop it, and strike back. Show that you are not to be trod upon. For so many years, I was told that love was the one and only answer, that you should basically take the beating and love your enemies. I remember being bullied, and letting myself be bullied, because I pitied them. I pitied how they took out their problems on other people, such as myself, how they seemed to enjoy it but deep down they may not have at all. I remember them poking and prodding at me in class, being called names.. and then just snapping. Screaming. Peeling the skin off my wrist under my jacket sleeve with a pen beforehand, because I could not handle the pain. I remember sobbing in the bathroom and being found by a girl I barely knew, who got help from the office and the office lady saying that if I needed to talk I could [which was horse shit, but I appreciated the gesture the young girl did for me, she could have simply ran away]. If it were now, I would have beaten them to a pulp. I would have struck back. A part of me wishes I had, and that they would've fought back, and that I'd have gotten dirty, that I'd have drawn blood and been feared. Fear is not respect, but it would have been the closest thing I got to respect from those boys. They were cruel and stupid and immature, like young boys can be. But now I'm at the point where I'm running my tongue over my teeth, where I acknowledge they exist and can be used, along with a silent mouth and a smooth talking tongue.

I was taught that love is the answer, from my mother and my private schools. My mother hates conflict. She will jab with words like a jabbering bird, but she is soft. Her bark is worse than her bite, and I'm learning to no longer fear her bark. I've done what I wanted anyways for years, I just danced around the part where I ask her permission, because all she will do is jabber. She won't really punish me. For the most part, I've grown up with a lack of discipline thanks to her. My father was lax too, yet when he was not he was too harsh. It was a terrible imbalance, and one my sister has to deal with in a way unique versus my own, with going back and forth from different households. I worry about her sometimes, but the readings say her adolescence will be nothing like mine, she will have it easy compared to me. In some ways I know it's frustrating though, because my father's a damned misogynist. He's a fat shaming racist with such a big ego he has no room to admit when he is wrong, and for being as young as she is, she's a smart girl. She knows when what he says is not right, albeit being a bit too sensitive to it [I hear the stories secondhand, but I still know she is]. Her uncle is the same way, and her grandma is a stubborn cunt. Perhaps cunt is a harsh word, but she tolerates all this under her nose, and continues to be the woman who refuses to get air conditioning despite how people suffer in her home. Not even for her dying husband would she install it, because of her stubbornness and pride. I think that's part of why I rarely let pride be a factor in my decisions, because of her actions and her son's. I learned from their mistakes.