Would you rather have a dead dad or a dad you wish were dead? These are not the only two options, of course. Just a comparison in my mind. My friend has a dead dad. I have a dad I wish was dead.

I suppose one day I’ll have both. Yay I win the suffering contest! That’s why I made this comparison right? Because I’m a try hard piece of shit who has to be superior in every way, even in loss?

I could already have both, I suppose. I haven’t heard from him in about a year. He’s not been in the best of health the whole time I’ve known him, and that’s almost certainly not improved. Tachycardia, sleep apnea, respiratory issues, Tourette’s, depression… Oh yeah, and he smokes a pack of unfiltered Lucky Strikes every day. At least he did last time I checked. Wait, no, he switched to… Natural Spirits? The one with the racist stereotype on the box. Never menthol, always unfiltered. I watched him crush the end of his spent cigarettes between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it back and forth until it dissolved into tobacco bits and paper. “It’s biodegradable.” Ah yes, father son bonding.

Someone on his side a few generations back committed suicide I think. Even if that’s not real, the ones I’ve met from his gene pool are all mentally ill. Genetic or environmental influence, he passed it on to me. Yay I win again! I have the most piece of shit story! Punish myself again for obsessively comparing. Except I don’t have the worst, I know I don’t.

The worst might be watching your father die over the course of a decade or so.

Or not having a father at all.

Or losing your hairbrush.

I don’t know. I know I remember his voice, and I wish I didn’t. The only reason I don’t think my dad hurt me as bad as my grandfather hurt me is because I can remember what my dad did to me. Which is worse of those? I’m experiencing both, right now, and I couldn’t say.

A terrifying physical violence that still makes me jump when I’m startled? Or an insidious poison that seeps through my every nerve, yet I can’t put a name to it?

Vivid, picture clear memories? Or scorched earth where memories should be, and a nervous system groomed to not move, be quiet, and sleep naked in an adult’s bed?

Again, binaries. Binaries where there are none. It’s like saying, “What’s louder, a plant growing or the moon rising?” Unanswerable. Unreal. Useless.