malevolent destroyer

i heard the front door slam and the stomps coming up the stairs.

i knew my father was on his way.

my room was at the end of a long hallway in a two-story house.

there was nowhere to hide.

i told the two boys to get behind my door, because in that moment it felt like the only option i had.

as my father approached, my mother screaming behind him, i opened the door just enough to pretend everything was normal and said, “what’s up.”

he pushed hard on the door i was holding

and the boys came tearing out from behind it.

they tried to escape the room

which meant running past my father

who was already throwing punches.

one connected

hit the teenage boy in the nose

and broke it.

the boys ran through the house

out the front door

down the street

trying to get as far away from us as they could.

when you are convinced your opinion is the only truth

when you refuse to adjust

you grab at everything around you

trying to control whatever you can.

you don’t ask

you assume

you judge

you react.

and you do it without remorse.

that kind of certainty can build you

or destroy you.

when you turn that same force inward

when you look at the places in your life that have become rigid, fixed, unmoving

and you break them on purpose

you stop trying to control the world around you.

the destruction of the old

opens new threads you could never see before.

it cracks timelines wide enough for you to walk through them

instead of fighting everything in your path.

this is disruption

the malevolent destroyer

the part of you that breaks what refuses to bend

so something new can exist in its place.