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The Star of Hatred
Originally written on 16 April 1998, relocated here from the Circular Cruises. -c
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I decided to come here so I could see could I forgive you. You who I have hated so terribly I have borne my hatred for you up into the heavens and made a needlesharp little star in the sky out of it. It's the star of Ethel Rosenberg's Hatred, and it burns every year for one night only, June Nineteen. It burns acid green.
from Angels In America
by Tony Kushner
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It is unpleasant to me to think that I hate someone so much that I could kill him. You don't want to believe yourself capable of such things, or maybe YOU do, but I don't.
It is unpleasant to me that there is a man out there whose memory is so vile to me that I remember when I dream about him - I never remember my dreams unless they frighten me enough that I wake up partially while I'm dreaming them. Then I remember.
I dreamed about my ex-stepfather again this morning.
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This is not True Confessions and I am not going on Oprah, do you understand me? I have not suffered any lingering damage at the hands of this man and I am not asking for your sympathy. I merely state the following so you will understand:
My stepfather was abusive to me and to my younger sister for all of the three years my mother was married to him. He tormented us physically and verbally. It was a hellish time.
It was a time when I was having great difficulty interacting with other people in high school, when I was feeling lonely and suicidal anyway, and when I was having the beginnings of what would later turn out to be gender problems. In short, he kicked me when I was already down.
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In a perverse way, my stepfather has helped me. Many of the accomplishments I've performed since then have been my own peculiar way of slapping his face; he said I was worthless so many times that I felt I needed to prove him wrong.
I am not worthless, and I've never doubted my own worth, but I AM basically lazy by disposition. The memory of my stepfather, and my own guilt of omission at things I haven't done yet, are the two things which get me out of bed in the morning.
Today more literally than usual.
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I managed pretty well for myself (knock wood), although for a long time he was a rift between me and my mother - I didn't understand how she could have done something so stupid, or why it took her so long to figure out what she had married. I've forgiven her, having done my own share of dumb but well-intentioned things since then.
I tend to get mulish in the face of opposition, saying "Oh? Well, we'll just see about THAT." My sister, bless her, doesn't work that way. She suffered more than I did at his hands, and I have never been altogether sure how well she recovered, although she's doing pretty well for herself too, so I suppose I'm just being paranoid.
Her birthday is the nineteenth of June, which makes the quote at the top even more fortuitous. On that day, she and I burn a sickly green star in the heavens.
© Columbine
18 July 2005 16:12
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