Dad, you obviously didn't read my last blog post, maybe you'll actually read this one

I remember the last blog post I wrote about you, dad. I honestly couldn't forget. As a result, you banished me from your house the weekend after, and after some consideration, instead decided to banish me from the internet connection every weekend since. It's only recently that you barged into my room, pissed off by some random event I don't know about, that you tossed me a slip of paper, calling me a big baby and to "have it" that my access to the internet has been restored.

Of course, I wouldn't dare write a blog post such as this while at your place. How could I, with possible beratement and untapped fury just down the staircase?

I wrote my theatre final about you. I had to write a song about how I fought against something bigger than myself. I wrote about the feeling I have of powerlessness when I'm with you. It came to my attention several weeks ago that there was a reason why I had all these fantasies about magical realms, fantasy situations where advanced power could be harnessed and wielded by me. I barely have any power in real life, so I'm forced to subconsciously imagine that I do. I pretend that I have the power to level the house I'm forced to spend my time in, pretending I have something I can hold over you, something I can do that preserves the balance of power. One of the things I repeat in the chorus of my song is the lyric "I won't become the anger in your eyes".

The weekend started off alright, with your usual contented demeanor being the one to shine through. Sadly that didn't last. Despite my wireless isolation, I still played my offline game on my laptop, seemingly unaffected by your punitive behavior. Saturday evening, however, you seemed incensed by something. Naturally I was forced to resort to submissive behavior, plenty of "yes dad"s to appease the beast I knew slumbered within. Your sin has and always has been wrath. I paced in my room, listening to music to calm myself, calm my own anger inside. You said that you knew me, as I was half you. Despite how much I fear to become you, that fear has always been a rational one. When you came in complaining I was making too much noise, I retorted with the fact that I can hear my sheets when I ruffle them very quietly (the room is very resonant), but you didn't care. You noticed the rice krispie treat wrappers on the small thing that doesn't qualify as a table and got mad again, saying I was eating shit. I was apparently supposed to act like a human being, not an animal. This from the man trying to act like god.

If not for you, I never would've developed the word "Jehovianism", the syndrome of holding Yahweh in such high esteem that one ends up becoming him. The anger, the wrath, the thought that you're doing something to help 'save' me when you screw up everything in the first place. Old testament god threw the CTRL+Smite command around like no other, punishing rather than forgiving. Despite my original sin, knowing good from evil, you still haven't forgiven me, and probably never will. Instead, I'm the bad guy, I'm the evil villain trying to topple your totalitarian throne, a throne built on a house of cards which can and will do nothing but fall.

That last blog post? I could've tossed around so many words, so many hurtful things, so many things to actually make it qualify your definition of "disrespectful". Is advocating for oneself disrespectful? I merely wish to be, and here you are trying to stifle me and my words. Is it because they can actually hurt you? Is it because they're the one thing you actually care about? my words aside, you're one to talk about the disrespect I've given to you, if any at all. All the disrespect and passive aggression I've perpetrated pales in comparison to yours. We're still waiting on all the apologies you're behind on, which you've never even thought to apologize directly for. That evening where my sister and I were to spend two hours at the Costco with you on our usual Thursday night where you justified yourself and your actions in making her cry two weeks before were full of bullshit. That is all you really did, justify yourself. I could ask my sister and she, too, wouldn't be able to remember when the words "I'm sorry" left your lips that evening. Did they ever?

My sister is another matter entirely. This weekend you kept telling me if I didn't like staying at your house with restricted access to the wifi, I was in fact 17 and had the option to leave. Once would've made me think nothing of it, but the second and third times drew suspicion. I felt like you were goading me, trying to plant the suggestion to make me leave. You then said despite my being a child, I'm old enough to make that decision, but the reasoning for why I stay, the reasoning I stand through my suffering is more adult than you could ever comprehend. My sister's only 12, and you told me a previous evening that 12 isn't an age where one could make a decision on a matter such as that, but she's older than 12 now. She has been for a long time, and you've still treated her (both of us, even) like a child. She's hardly innocent anymore, especially with everything you've done. Why do I stay? I stay for her. She's cried herself to sleep on numerous occasions, she suffers, and she tries to be an amazing person like the person I described in her birthday post but just can't because of this negative force in her life, this energy that tears her apart and drives her further into the dark side.

Father of the year, 41.9 BBY -- 4 ABY

I have to be there for my sister, just like she has to be there for me. You showed our Aunt and Uncle our grades as if you had something to be proud of, but isn't pride for something one achieves on their own? All you ever care about is me taking tests, me getting scholarships, me doing good so that you have something to brag about. You only seek to punish me for my bad grades, only really caring when they're bad. You don't even try to help, don't even try to consider the emotional turmoil my sister and I are put through that causes a decline in our grades. Must be because we're not applying ourselves or because we're lazy. Well, that's true. Neither of us are applying ourselves because we can't. We're locked in this battle with you which we're forced into fighting without being able to leave. We can only surrender, but we know what happens to prisoners of war. No matter how much we're supposed to build a bridge, we've lost the spirit.

Alec Guinness didn't give in to totalitarianism, why would I?

What can we do? What could we possibly do? Your attempts to make us be a part of your "new family" can only succeed to a certain extent. Not only are the personality differences vast, but we barely know them, barely feel comfortable around them. All we know is you're increasingly defensive of them, your way of saying "won't anybody think of the children?!?" Any mild complaint about your newfound (maybe not that newfound...) family is an offense to be dealt with. You claimed my mentioning of how you and your girlfriend bought a house together somehow caused her to be fired, even though a teenager's blog isn't exactly a logical source of dependable information. You followed up by saying if I mentioned you were doing drugs in one of my blog posts, you'd get drug tested at work. Of course, you're not doing drugs, are you?

I might get my internet privileges revoked once more with this, with all this 'disrespect' I'm having by voicing my opinion. This weekend, these nudges to my shoulder to get my attention. You're little more than that bully in elementary school trying to provoke a reaction, trying to goad me into fighting you so that you can cry and scream and claim you're the one who're being bullied. That's probably how you'll portray this blog post, probably how you'll justify this downright abusive behavior. You tell my sister and I you enjoy having us around, but have you considered that both of us may not feel the same way?

You've spent all this time thinking about yourself, thinking about how you can strengthen your regime. There's a phrase about how if you encounter an asshole a day, they're an asshole, but if you encounter ten assholes a day, you're the asshole. Think about how many people are to blame for all these events, how out of all of them, none of them seems to be you. Quite fascinating that you're such a perfect being, eh? My most rational fear, as I mentioned, was becoming you, becoming the anger in your eyes that always seems to be present, even when suppressed. I said once before that I either wanted you to man up and be a proper father or to leave us alone, but your actions and hatred and dark side power you pervade have made me lean further and further towards the latter until I have nowhere left to lean.

I hate it, dad. I have having to lie, having to smile and be a good son just so I don't invoke the wrath of the heavens. My sister hates it too, and is finding it harder and harder to lie as time goes on. Sooner or later one of us will snap again, and it won't be pretty.

Let us be us, and maybe then you can figure out who you're supposed to be, too.