Here is My Real Head series Pt. 5

Organ Grinder by Marilyn Manson

I am the face of piss and shit and sugar

I do a crooked little dance with my funny little monkey
What I want, what I want is just your children
I hate what I have become to escape what I hated being
Calliopenis envy from your daddy
You're not gonna hear what he don't want to hear
What I say disgusts him
He wants to be me and that scares him
"let's do a funny little dance with my funny little monkey"
The black keys
Here is my real head, here is my real head
I wear this fucking mask because you cannot handle me
Here is my real head
They try to blink me not to think me
Don't want to bring me out
I am the rotten teeth, my fists are lined with suckers
My prison skin's an eyesore-mirror-sketch-pad
I am your son, your dad, your fag, I am your fad
Here is my real head, here is my real head
I wear this fucking mask because you cannot handle me
Here is my real head

Here is My Real Head series 

Pt. 1 - Addiction & Self Mutilation
Pt. 2 - Childhood Grooming & Sex and Relationships
Pt. 3 - Worth of My Peers & Trust
Pt. 4 - Being Honest with My Parents
Pt. 5 - The Sound and Feel of Carpet

8. The Sound and Feel of Carpet

    Where I long to swim and the dirt I’m buried in are two entirely different earths.

     What becomes a fish is born free of their counting clock, while what disintegrates into a worm is born already dying to blast off into space.

     And I think that’s a lot like me; I’m a disrupted galaxy. My black holes are my quirks.

-~-

     For as long as I can remember, the sensation of touching carpet with my skin, or the sound of someone else’s, has always enraged me. I want to smash my own father’s face into a thousand imperfect pieces every single time he rubs his feet on the carpet, assumingly forgetting how many times I’ve told him I can’t stand it.

     Around the age of three or four, my mom came over to my house. At the time, I referred to her as my aunt Stephanie, as biologically, she is my birth mother’s sister.

     She came over to tell my birth mother that she wanted to take me to the Florida Aquarium, and I imagine she was basically asking for permission because she was so young. From what I can recall, my birth mother was reluctant, but hiding it so. I assume she was jealous, she slyly tried to convince me it wasn’t a great idea by telling me of the sharks that would be there. Knowing it was my biggest fear—aside from tornadoes, which no one knew of at the time—she had me instantly terrified. At some point during the conversation, I jumped up and ran down the hallway, where I accidently fell to my knees and skidded across the carpet into her bedroom door.

     I was left with painful rug burn at the end of the hallway, crying and terrified. I wanted to go and spend time with my aunt Stephanie at the aquarium, I just wanted to be brave enough to go, as now it was required. I was angry my birth mother ruined it for me by telling me of my horrors awaiting me there. If I went after hearing about the sharks, I was to be forced into a situation I had to be brave in, when I already had so much fear within me begging to rip free from my chest.

     Reflecting back, I think I have a pretty decent guess as to why carpet bothers me so. Though it’s important to mention first, it’s obviously another piece of my negative childhood conditioning by the rage it brews, as opposed to the various other emotions it could arouse instead.

     When I really think about the personal essence of carpet, I realize its symbolism has always meant fear, and more so, being forced into fear by an outside force. It’s an odd, and unusual situation rarely faced in regular life. Now when I fear something, I almost always have a choice to face it or turn away without any true consequences besides my own guilt which is easily dealt with. However, in the aquarium situation, I was being “punished” by not going to the aquarium if I wasn’t brave enough to conquer my fear, unfairly before ever even witnessing it.

     What bothers me most is there was no need for me to know about the sharks prior to entering the aquarium in the first place. My birth mother scared me before I even had a chance to comprehend the fear.