David Senra

My father is going to kill me.

After years of hearing my father rant at my flaws, one loss has caused me to take up his rant.

I've internalized my father, his impatience, his perfectionism, his rage, until his voice doesn't feel like my own.

It is my own.

I no longer need my father to torture me.

From this day on, I can do it all by myself.

And I think one of the most important lessons of this book, as you see, is like, okay, well, why is his father like this?

Where did this come from?

And the difference between Andre and his father is Andre's search to try to fix Andre.

Andre's not like this with his own kids.

His father learned this from his mother and never stopped the cycle.

My father's mother lives with us and she's a nasty old lady.

She's saying the same nasty thing she said yesterday and the day before and the day before that.

And she's saying it to her son, to Andre's father.

This seems to be the reason grandma was put on the earth to harass my father.

She nagged him since he was a boy and she often beat him.

My father's past was sad and lonely and helps explain his odd behavior and his boiling rage.

This goes on day after day, year after year.

I hit for a half hour, my head throbbing, my eyes tearing.

Hit harder, my father says.