Clawing My Way Out

I'm not going to pretend I was some kind of fucked up ghetto kid from a poor neighborhood growing up. I lived alright, got the things I needed for the most part. Even got the things I wanted a few times. I didn't sell crack or my pussy or anything like that. But I did survive suburbia.

Growing up in a super Christian home would make you think I'd come out with some good ideals. And hey, you'd be right. I think of myself as pretty righteous. But maybe that's just my own innate scrupulousness. And of course, like some stereotypical religious satire, my dad had to turn out to be a freaky pervert and alcoholic. It was a sad sad night when I realized I was the child of a completely loveless, dead relationship. How do you even begin to comprehend that? And then there's the religion. I can understand growing up without a god. But to grow up, 12, 13 years devoutly, and have it all taken away from you, shattered? Witness your preacher father hit your mom who's screaming about divorce, completely out of the fucking blue. Now that's fucked up. I try to fill that gap of faith, that shattered notion that these lives are something more than just a blink of the Earth's eye with other things, stupid things, superstition.

But the worst is my town. How fucking white trash it is. How all the kids drank and fucked each other when they were like 15. I guess that's how most teens are though, I guess. Well, except for me. I felt awkward. I didn't want to do those things. And I felt even worse for not wanting it, for not having experienced it. I felt like I was missing out on something I should have wanted.

I experimented. I was a slut for a year, I'll admit it. Fuckin' a. I went to parties as an older teenager. I suffered fools. I shopped at thrift stores because my mom told me that I was a financial burden on the family. Walked the streets alone at night, crying my eyes out. Jumped out of my second story bedroom window to concrete below over some douchebag guy. Prevailed over the stupid brometal and F-150s with "Froaders for Bush" bumper stickers and Support Out Troops decals. Weathered the shitstorm my brother caused our family for dealing and growing pot in his bedroom.

Watched my parents fight, go to counseling, fight some more. Fell asleep with my fingers in my ears so I wouldn't have to hear. And you know, I guess this is normal. It's just the human drama. But I do know that many people succumb to it. I don't know. Maybe I read into this shit too much. But I clawed my fucking way out of that hellhole. Nowadays I call myself a contemporary artist with influences of Pop art, Impressionism, and Superflat. I study Japanese folklore and learn foreign languages, say I'm a fucking graphic designer and read surrealist novels. Shop at Trader Joe's and Bristol Farms and use a vintage plastic lens camera. I guess I'm just trying to be everything that isn't my stupid hometown.

I feel like I am really coming to know my parents for the first time in 20 years. I talk to my dad, and I tell him I love him now, and I mean it, I am trying to love him. When my mom calls me I tell her when I'm feeling bad. I try to be as brutally fucking honest as I can, with everyone. I've got manners, though. I don't know. When I think about my memories, it seems like such a long time has passed. I feel so old. I'm still surviving my fucking 20's. I wonder what else is going to come along.