His name was Leonard Jon Price. He was institutionalized for paranoid schitzophrenia, as a teenager. He wasn't violent towards others, but he was a self-destructive person. My mother said that he was on pills, but I sometimes wonder if he wasn't on some bad drugs. It's okay if she lied, because I'm sure that it was difficult for her to be as honest as she was with me, her own child, about my father's complicated issues.
Lenny disappeared when I was almost three years old. He tried to run off with the shotgun, but his grandma wrestled it from him. She went off to hide the gun, but when she returned, he was gone and her butcher knife was missing. It was April 14, 1983 in Eddington, Maine. Lenny disappeared into the snowy woods (April in Maine is still often snowy) wearing nothing but his tightie-whities and an undershirt, and his body was never found.
When I was nine, my grandmother signed his death certificate, so that my mother could recieve survivor's benefits (sort of child support, for dead parents). He doesn't have a grave, though. I think that she always hoped that he was still alive.
It really messed with me, as a kid. I hated him for being weak, for leaving me, and especially, not loving me enough to get over himself. My grandma Penny always told me how much I was like him. My mother never seemed to understand me. Eventually, I realized that I was hurting myself with all this anger, holding myself back with all that "woe is me" bullshit.
I've learned to accept that my father was human. I know what he was thinking, because I've felt the same way. "The World, (meaning his loved ones and especially me) would be better off without me." I have this same type of personality, and have told myself this same thing, many times. I was never able to fully convince myself, which I attribute to my father. Knowing how his actions affected everyone who loved him, was the proof that it is a lie. Good intentions mean nothing, to those who are left behind to bear the results of your twisted gift.
Eventually, I was able to work through my own problems, and I credit alot of my own self-realization, to the mistakes of my father. If everything happens for a reason, then what happened to Lenny, happened to teach me a truth about understanding. Understanding others, even if I don't agree with them and understanding myself, so that I can be a good parent to my own child.
It's all about acceptance of those who have hurt me, or kept me down, in my past. Realizing my own part, in past conflicts. Even though my mistakes don't always excuse the behavior of others, and there are certain people who have victimized me in ways that will never deserve forgiveness, I have learned that dwelling on it, wallowing in it, and "why me?" or "how could he?", this is the road to nowhere. This is why I would feel trapped, caged, because I was holding myself prisoner.
I often wonder what happened to my father.

WTF

WTF are you looking at? Is there something in my eye/on my face? Are you obsessed, impressed, ultimately vexed? Can't tear away from the view, mind all askew? Ha-haaa-**** you. Now move along, and let another enjoy the view.

Abstract Lyrical Plagiaristic Poetry

Everybody's knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
Everybody knows that the war is over. Everybody knows that the good guys lost.
Everybody knows that the fight was fixed. The poor stay poor, the rich get rich, and that's how it goes, everybody knows...
I know, I've got to let it go, and just enjoy the show
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
Stuttering. Cold and damp. Steal the warm wind tired friend. Times are gone for honest men, and sometimes far too long for snakes.
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. Nothing, and that's all that he left me. Feeling good was easy when he sang the blues, and feeling good was good enough for me.
Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dad From a worn-out picture that my mother'd had, And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye. He was big and bent and gray and old, And I looked at him and my blood ran cold And I said: "My name is 'Sue!' How do you do! Now your gonna die!!" Well, I hit him hard right between the eyes And he went down, but to my surprise, He come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear. But I busted a chair right across his teeth And we crashed through the wall and into the street Kicking and a' gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer.
I've seen so many things I aint never seen before. Don't know what it is I don't want to see no more. Mamma told me not to come, she said, that ain't the way to have fun.
Is something wrong, she said. Of course there is. Your still alive she said. Don't I deserve to be?
What we have here is a failure to communicate...
I just want you to know that I don't hate you anymore. There is nothing I could say, that I haven't said before.