Bonsai Again

Yesterday I heard the pastor call out, heard him encourage people to stand and come closer to the cross with their heads down. And my forehead burrowed into a frown because I couldn't move my legs. I stayed where I was, looking at the floor. Ashamed but still proud because I couldn't let go of my anger. I wanted to scream why. I wanted the thoughts to stop. I wanted to shove the hatred away. But I also knew, I wanted to keep them. I wanted to plant them in my heart and nurture them while those wheels kept turning.

It wasn't just about him anymore. It was about all those years, years where the joys could not compensate the blows I had to withstand. People do not understand because they do not know what I went through. What do they know? I do not need to explain to them why I am doing what I am doing. Even if I explain my reasons, they will not believe me anyway... so why bother?

But You, You know everything. You know what I went through and although You made sure that I had something to fall back on, You still allowed it to happen. Just as You allowed that Bobby to trace ungodly marks on my 12 year old body, just as you let me work while my friends lived a sheltered life, just as You paved the way for me to feel my relatives' wrath for my mother, just as You allowed my mother to gamble her way to whichever end you prepared for her while her children suffered, just as You watched me break despite my attempts to do everything plausible to make everything right, just as You marveled on a child's capacity to survive watching her father's heart break so many times and transfer his frustration on her mother's face.

I never understood the great plan. I never understood who got to live this kind of life or that kind of life. This is not about losing a lover. This is about losing your dreams, losing your love for life, losing people you care about, losing whatever pride you have left.

I am back to who I was when I was 14 - angry, angst-driven, disappointed. I am too old to be 14 now but I am too hateful to care. Maybe they are right, maybe I am a hypocrite, maybe the person they knew in the past few years was someone who I have been trying to be but just couldn't be, maybe I should stop going to church, maybe I should just stop whatever I am doing and just go where ever my feet will take me, maybe the great plan was to ruin people's lives.