to my pappy

Nigga,

You ain't shit.

I've been wanting to say that since I've learned all this stuff about you a few weeks ago.

Let's start with some niceties; grace, if you will.

I'm sorry no one ever held you accountable for your actions. Your parents, your siblings, your teachers, your friends and other family. I'm sorry you thought never it necessary to change your behavior. I'm sorry I never showed my anger towards you as a child. I'm sorry you had so many people enable you. Your parents and our pastors.

Now, a hard truth or few.

You have so many fucking chances to make healthier choices. To be a better brother, to be a better husband, to be a better dad, to be a better leader. Hell, a better person. Just because no one has probably ever held your accountable doesn't mean they didn't try. It means they either gave up or they ignored it. Maybe both. Either way, your actions affected the people you surrounded yourself with. And in the cases where their anger, frustration, and/or hurt was on the surface, you chose to crawl into yourself for shelter.

You never extended yourself to make your relationships better. You never compromised. You drug everyone with you, probably kicking and screaming. Or even worse, they were probably fucking dead inside.

You fucked with my head and heart. You fucked with my sisters head and heart. You fucked with my mom's head and heart. And for you to have kids from your first marriage that you abandoned is one thing. To not be involved in their lives to the point of you not knowing what your own fucking son loved doing and was good at is fucking sad.

And, ironically, that makes you the biggest piece of shit this side of the universe.

I want to punch answers out of you. I want to cuss you out. I want to yell at you. I want soany things and I know for a mother fucking fact you can't deliver.

And that's the difference between you and I. I know what I expect but I also know what's reasonable and I would never EVER fuck so many people over.

I don't know you. I really fucking don't.

You've lived in the same house as me all my life and I don't know you.

You came to so many school functions and I don't know you.

You drove out family across the country for years and I don't know you.

All you have us was your presence, as if it was a blessing enough for you to fucking be here.

And for the longest, I believed that shit. I accepted what I thought to be true despite what I wished was true and still somehow I'm the dumbass.

So fuck you, you stupid fucking bitch.

Go find yourself. Figure yourself out. You've brought your unhealed ass into this family and never changed your ways for the better.

I know for a fact you have a few opportunities to make healthy choices, to make the hard but right decisions and still you chose yourself.

And now you can chose yourself by yourself.

You don't know what love is enough to give it. You have no character to teach any of us how to be better people.

You are not a guding light. You are the darkness in the corner that only consumes.

Fuck you.