Anger

Do you remember the dog?

The dog that died two years ago? The dog we had for 14 years, since I was a kid.

The dog that Daddy said was in a coma the last day I lived at home. Daddy said this when he wouldn't know a coma if Mommy fell into one right beside him — he'd just think you were dead and bury you, Mommy — and when I had seen the dog, myself. Her eyes were open — she was still responsive. That's not a coma!

How could you even lie about such a thing? Are you demented?!

Did you kill the dog?

You told me later she died that day. Mommy was crying, though my most vivid memory of them together was the time she was tormenting the dog. But Mommy cried as she told me how you two took her to the animal shelter for their free euthanasia service. (Of course it had to be free.) But did you really?

Did you wait until I'd left, then "put her out of her misery" yourselves? What really happened to that dog?

I don't believe what you tell me. That's how little I think of you.

Daddy and Mommy. A raving lunatic and his scheming wife. Or, more accurately, a cunning woman and her deranged lackey.

Oh, Daddy, when I think of you, I still see you on the kitchen floor, curled up like a madman, bawling and screaming hysterically because I didn't do something you'd demanded. What was it? Did I take too long in the shower again? That was a favorite ranting topic of yours — we rehearsed that routine daily for years, didn't we? It was most likely something equally stupid. Your face was hideously contorted. When I think that you're the freak who sired me, I'm this close to reaching for razor blades.

Yeah, I know you're my parents. The people who brought me into this world. But that means nothing.

There's nothing miraculous about what you did. You had me because your genes and cultural upbringing induced you to reproduce. It was time to start a family, even if it was going to be dysfunctional nightmarish one. And I know what you wanted from me — an obedient little drone to mold into your image of what a good Korean girl should be. The last thing on this goddamned earth you wanted was an individual to encourage to become her own person. No, definitely not that!

It was expected that you'd feed and clothe me, unless you wanted a naked, emaciated "Save the Children" poster child running around — oh oh, what would your friends say? If you're going to have a child, you'd damned well better take good care of it. You put a roof over my head and walls surrounding me, but they amounted to a dungeon.

And yes, you sent me to college. You educated me. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was so that you ridiculous braggarts could boast to your friends about Your Daughter the Pharmacist / Accountant / Nurse / Whatever. Or so that I'd be able to take care of your pathetic asses when you grew old, though you reacted with indignant rage at the idea. Methinks you protested much too much, Daddy. In the end, you educated me not because you loved me and wanted me to study something that would give me fulfillment. It was because we're bourgeois Asians — the very idea of having an uneducated child is worse than disgraceful. And I know I should still be grateful, but I'm not. I hate your f***ing guts.

I hate your voices, I hate your thoughts. I hate the fact that you exist. I hate me, that I'm your progeny, that I'm a product of your conniving, cowardly corrupted genes.

For so many years, I tried to see past your stupidity, but I'm sick of it.

I'm almost 30 years old, yet when I step into your house, I can't even go see my oldest friend because he's male! What the hell do you think I'm going to do? Snort coke, shoot acid, rob banks? Do you think I'm some stupid little whore that'll just drop my pants and f*** him on sight?!

The thought of going home to see you again drives me to desperation bordering on suicidal. The thought of the two of you brings a scream to my throat, a raging cry that threatens to swallow me whole. My whole being wants to scream, NOT THERE AGAIN! NOT THEM!

Why do I ever have to see you again? Why try to visit me? God, stay away! Why ask that I visit you? Do you understand? I'd be happy never seeing you again. Why can't you just leave me the f*** alone?

Whatever made you think I'd want to see you once I'd left? I don't want to see you, because I see right through you. Far away from you, I can at least just objectively pity you.

What made you think you could ever tell me what to do? Conscience never guided your actions. You would walk past a dying person on the street if he were black, brown, dark, unknown — if you thought no one was looking. You'd pretend not to see and try to make me look away, too.

You don't do what's right — you do what you're afraid not to do. Fear drives you. Fear that you're deviating from some collectively dictated norm that you think constitutes normalcy. You're afraid of being different, because you're deathly afraid of anything different.

You believe in a vengeful god of hellfire and scalding sulfuric ash, and his name is Conformity. It's everything you fear and obey.

And Daddy knows how much I loathe this life, how desperate I've been to escape. He saw the scars on my body! His scornful remark? You think I haven't thought of death? You think you're the only one who hates this life? But there's no choice!

Daddy would willingly bind me into a life that he himself despises, a terrible life where individuality is quashed and trampled and erased, this dehumanizing existence that made him the miserable, horrible little wretch he is! He does this knowing what it can do!

You'd rather destroy me than let me be?!

Do you know how frantic I was to get away from your mindless control? I chose the farthest f***ing college I could. Oh, I'd shoot myself dead before I went home during the weekends from Albany, Daddy. You think I want to see your sorry faces? What makes you think anyone who has even the slightest desire to retain sanity would want that?

No, I went far away, and I tasted freedom from your direct control. Oh, I relished it! No one watching me every minute, coming to fetch me back to the common room if I wanted a few moments alone. I no longer felt dominated by totalitarian tyranny — I actually had privacy ... space! I had to know what it was like to be free, even if that freedom was an illusion.

But then guilt got to me. I thought I'd wronged you horribly with my behavior. I felt like a bad girl, and when I found R--, a decent and good Korean boy, it was only too easy to stay with him. He made it easier, becoming a doctor and therefore respectable and accomplished in every way you'd tried to tell me I should be. He was my atonement for being myself. For not being complacent and obedient. He was also my escape from you.

And I married him. Because I was at That Age, because I didn't want to spend that year he needed to work in NYC alone in your house and you said he couldn't stay the year in the guest room unless he was my husband, because you started planning that repulsive wedding. You asked me was I sure I wanted this? How could I say to you no, but you'll drive me to suicide if I don't.

I married him to be free of you, so I would no longer be yours to control — or so I thought. Oh, don't mistake me: there was love between us, but he could have been my brother. I married him without stopping to think of what I was giving up, that I was in no way ready to be a "We" when I still didn't know who the hell "I" was or am.

From one f***ing prison to another.

But I married a Korean doctor. Weren't you proud of me??

No, you were too busy discrediting his father, a man who compared to you is a saint! He might be guilty of pride and shortsightedness, and maybe even megalomania, but he made a life out of helping people. He would help anyone lying on the street. I know he would.

You can't stand that, can you? You can't stand that he tried and made something of himself in this country. You and your narrowminded, disillusioned little friends just had vilify to him, scoff at his unimpressive education in Korea when he'd studied much further than any of you and become a respected reverend in the US. The last laugh is on you. Whose death do you think will leave a greater impact?

How often do I think of death? Count the dead dog, dead family, dead people known and unknown and never existed, and occasional musings of what if ... and I guess it's pretty often.

Death seems much too convenient. It's the last resort that's always available. Well, unless I f*** it up and end up a quadruplegic who couldn't try again — that would be pretty ghastly. And it seems to be a one-way door. I've never been very good at commitment.

But I've always been one to toy with things. Prose, poetry, drawing, needlework, sharp objects, toxins. I've directed so much rage toward myself — if the body couldn't heal, I'd be pretty badly off.

What's the matter with me for being so fascinated with death?

Oh, but I could laugh! If you read this, Mommy and Daddy, you would draw back, terribly afraid of me. You think it's possible that I would kill you like the children you see on television who kill their parents, family, teachers, peers. Either you realize you did nothing to instill me with a conscience or you think that little of me. Or you really don't know what it means to have faith in people. I bet that's it...

I couldn't give a s*** either way. I'm not wasting away the rest of my life in prison over your horrid heads.

And watch,...having vented all this fury, I'm going to feel guilty and be nice again.