Justice is Empty

I was in the car with my dad, he was taking me to soccer practice.

He asked me if I would pass the ball to this kid named Alan, who had gotten me into trouble by falsely accusing me of kicking him in the testicles. I guess my dad thought I wanted revenge. But I didn’t want revenge. My dad sounded surprised and said something like “Ohh just forgive and forget, HUH!?” And I said “yes”, it was obvious to me that I should treat Alan the same as any other team mate. It was right.

I don’t know where I learned that from. Maybe Jesus or maybe TV. It matters little but what does matter was that my father was surprised by my choice to forgive, it seemed as if my father thought it would have been ok to not pass Alan the ball, to make Alan pay for what he did. I remember not being able to look at my father in his surprise because I felt something hurt inside of me. It was either embarrassment or shame that my father could have thought otherwise; that my father was wrong, and that I was right. But I didn’t want to be right. My father’s is supposed to be right.

 

I was in my room and very angry.

My sister had broken my toy abacus. And she was told to say that she was sorry. She said she was sorry in that little girl pony tail bitchy sort of way that only an older sister can. I had gone to my room to brood and cry until finally I had had enough. The pain was too great. Something had to be done. What was wrong had to be made right. And my Goddamn parents weren’t going to do it! So I stormed into my sisters room and grabbed her abacus and with every ounce of power my five year old body could muster I poured out hatred and anger and justice. The beads went everywhere. And I watched them explode in joy through drying tears of sorrow. And I was not ashamed to look down at my sisters pain, I was right.

 

I was angry again for some reason,

it’s doesn’t matter really why. I went to the kitchen and started stabbing a cutting knife into the floor until the knife broke. My father found me and looked at me and said something about not being normal and my mother being angry. I couldn’t look at him again, something hurt inside. I felt wrong.

 

I don’t want to be wrong. And I don’t want to be right.

 

Justice is empty

and Love is not in this poem.