His hand raised above my head, a wall at my back, no where to run to. This is what it was like. His expression is such anger, his features contorted. I caused this anger. I screwed up. I owned this sort of guilt in such a deep way it was like a part of me, like a tumor. He was hitting me and I felt bad that I caused it, caused him to be upset, that I should be better. But that was only a part of it. I hated him, too.

I tensed up but didn’t run. There was nowhere to run to, he’d catch me and then it would be worse. I knew. I’ve done it before. The worst beatings were the ones when I tried to get away. I only ran now if I was sure he wouldn’t be able to get me. He hits so hard. So much. Punches. I just cover my face but he has never hit my face. You can’t really hide a black eye. My dad’s smart, I mean, he’s a surgeon. If he’s gonna beat his own kid he can’t leave visible evidence. But I know the evidence is there. It’s in the way I jump at noises, flinch away from everybody, cringe whenever anyone touches me.

Kicks, too. He kicks me, he throws me against walls and down to the ground, he straps me. He hates me. He’s so violent. But I am, too. When I’ve had a bad day at school or something I’ll come home and destroy stuff. It feels so good, at the time, to break things. So good. Maybe that’s what my dad feels, alongside regret and the sour bile taste of being such a dick to his own son, when he’s hurting me he probably feels good for that instant.

I hate my life. I hate my dad. I hate the fact that my mother is dead and I’ll never see her again. The parent I loved. I hate going to school and seeing everybody else with their normal lives and not hiding any injuries. I hate wearing long sleeved shirts in summer. I hate pretending to be sick so I don’t have to go to gym class because of those stupid skins/shirts games.

There are varying degrees of the abuse. Sometimes he just throws stuff, glares at me, yells. Doesn’t touch me but I’m scared he’s gonna, and I breath fast and my heart beats so fast and hard it hurts but he doesn’t touch me. That’s when he’s more or less keeping control. And he goes and cools off and then it’s okay. Sometimes it’s a quick hard slap, a yanking on my clothes, and his hands ball into fists and he walks away. I watch him go with round eyes, curse myself for fucking up again. Sometimes it’s punches on my arms, fast and hard. Sometimes he grabs my wrists and brings my face close to his and I see how his eyes look, how his nostrils flare, and I can see the reflection of the room in his glasses. My wrists hurt because he squeezes them so hard and he throws me down and that hurts too and he kicks me and I can’t breath, my eyes tear up from pain. Just like when a little kid scrapes all the skin off their knee and they cry, it’s crying like that, from pain. I cry the other way, too. Cry because he hurts me and it hurts my feelings and he hates me and I miss my mother. I cry every way.

Then when I’ve really fucked up something he straps me with his leather belt but not the buckle. He holds the buckle in his hands. Jesus, that buckle could break bones, probably. He’s punishing me, not trying to kill me. But that belt hurts so much. It’s stinging sharp pain and it feels like it’ll never stop.

My life is pain. Physical pain from always being bruised, always being scared. Cautiously creeping around my dad, never trusting anyone. Pain from missing my mother, taking the bus to her grave, sitting on the ground above her and crying, or staring off into space. And I can never talk about her, which would help. My dad ignores it, changes the subject and then I want to hit him.

I have to pretend that things are fine. It’s getting harder. At school, at home, it’s getting harder. Maybe I’m depressed. I never want to wake up. I never want to get out of bed in the morning. I’m lonely. I don’t really have friends. No one can come over. I don’t trust anyone, anyway.

What did I do to piss him off? I hardly know anymore. Came home late. Left a mess in the kitchen, dining room, living room. Got a bad grade. Talked back. Talked about mom. Saw Joey and Angela. I can’t do anything. But he’s mad now and he’s got that look. No going back.

“Dad, I’m, I’m sorry-”

He doesn’t say anything but I stop speaking , close my eyes as he grabs my arms. He’s so rough. Lifts me up off the ground and I squeeze my eyes shut now. I close my eyes through most of these…episodes. Try to think of other things, other places, my mother reading me books when I was little, her cool hand on my forehead. Movies I like. The car races, chases, eating popcorn in the dark theaters. That sort of works. But I can still feel it, being hurt and wanting it to stop. Kicks. Sometimes he kicks my stomach and knocks the wind out of me, and it’s scary because I can’t breath. Maybe I’ll die. But I sort of want to die so what’s so scary?

Then he leaves, slamming some door. Maybe the door to my room, like now. That’s where I am. In my room. I’ll get locks for the door, then I can run up here and lock him out. But he’s gone now and I’m just crying because my life is so fucked up. What kind of a father does this? Curled up into a ball because I hurt so so bad. I’ve seen other kinds of dads. Like on T.V., the dad on “Growing Pains” he’d never do this, and the dad on “My So-Called Life” he’s wicked cool, he’d never hurt Angela. Then Joey. Joey didn’t act like this. He didn’t hurt Angela, either. Why couldn’t I live with Joey? Why’d my mom leave me with dad? She knew. She knew how he was. He used to hit her, too. She saw him hit me. So what was wrong with her?

I get up because I have to eventually. I feel stiff and sore and there aren’t any bruises yet. They take a while, a day or two, like a photograph to develop. Nice little reminder. It aches and I keep feeling it and every time I do I wonder, ‘what is that?’ and then it comes back to me.

Fucked up. That described everything about me. Quiet, sitting on my bed, waiting for my dad. If not today then tomorrow or the next day he’d apologize with his bullshit excuses and I’d accept them and believe him and have the faith, one more time, that it would never happen again.

“I’ll never hit you again, Craig,” he’d said once, like last year. And it lasted for awhile and I started to really believe him. Had to believe him because if I didn’t then I was an abused child. Even though I wasn’t a child, not really. I was a teenager and someday I’d be big enough to fight back.