better.

After much contemplation,
I will be taking the high road out.
After years of building a protective barrier around my childhood memories,
and of thinking that I was invincible to the hatred,
one night of stupid decisions and a painfully short paragraph,
the dam sprung a leak.
Trickling through were forgotten memories,
which are the fabric of my scarred psyche.
Never have I been a real daughter,
so being reduced to a brutal paragraph should not have been as shocking.
His fall from grace was looming overhead,
but his legacy is for all the world to see.
A man who looked down on everybody else
because he was too good for them,
is now the drunken fool who has left a path of destruction more grand than post Katrina New Orleans.
I will not be the dog who chases its tail;
his damning untruthful words about me will not come into fruition.
If this world is a stage,
then I will not be the class dunce for the world to laugh at.
Never my dad,
always my genetic donor.
Thank heavens for my mama’s side of the family,…
for, it weren’t for them, I would have that same hate coursing through my veins.
The following songs have taken an entirely new meaning for me:
I'm a Survivor by Reba McEntire,
Because of You by Kelly Clarkson and Reba McEntire,
and I Wonder by Kellie Pickler.
More than ever, I have become a staunch advocate for the theory of “nurture, not nature.”
My proof are pit bulls.
Just like me, genetically they have a monster lying dormant within them.
If raised in a gentle, loving, firm environment then they can grow up to be the most wonderful, loving pets that one can imagine.
But if raised in a hateful, seething, blood thirsty environment, then no doubt remains that it will grow up to be a monster.
The legacy that this “man” is leaving behind it is not me,
because for the first time in my life I truly FELT it…
I AM BETTER THAN HIM.
I am better than him.