CREATIONS BY UNDER THE DOME

I called the cops on my father once. He had lost his mind first, and his temper second.

I suppose for a fleeting moment we really were afraid.

Then men in shaded blue uniforms and encumbering boots soldiered onto our affectionately ugly carpet, and before I knew it, I was searching for felt tip spy cameras or a calendar that could reveal to me that all along it had actually been the very first day of the fourth month.

I filled out a questionnaire next to my shaken sister and watched nerves tint my dry peachy feet an iron grey hue thinking that my body had finally given up and become a mood ring.

After living a stagnant life for 14 years, my dad was trudged out in chains, and my life got to moving, its direction unknown.

He was released a day--at most two--later; our consolation prize that his pride had been taken.

He had to breathe air 300 feet away, and I was glad for it.

Suddenly the blue planet, wide and expansive enough to suit its eight billion residents, was little more than a pebble to me.

Four walls that were once my world felt like a glass enclosure keeping me netted up in pungent, rotting memories.

So, my mom and I took a train to the city, which was something we had never before, something he had never tainted.

I am fairly certain that it was the 6th of May, that bright, sizzling hot sun-burn day.

And, we turned up at City Creek with tear-stained sunglasses and nonsensical notions about what the worst-case scenarios of every step would be.

We left soon after feeling like we were failing at living and thinking that that just might be okay.

My life then was an antonym of agoraphobia; there was nothing but tasteless Jamba-Juice smoothies, empty wallets, and spoiled attempts at happiness that hadn’t followed the recipe closely enough.

Things improved, though, of course they did, they always do.

I abandoned the daily task of finding kindle to feed the licking flames of my red hot hatred, and I brought my father back into my orbit.

I evacuated melancholy and relocated to a flat in Draper.

The change was so gracious and refreshing that it made me question why I had even needed the switch-up in the first place.

I found myself shotgun in my dad’s Jeep again, and I felt at mercy to the instinctual urge within a child to love their parents and pardon them of any and all wrongdoings the second they hear a hint of a half-baked apology.

It went on like that for awhile, a war between my heart and brain, a wrestling match between my love and hate.

I was the sort of person then who couldn’t like themselves enough to stop needing others’ affirmation.

So, I put up with his prejudices and preaching about how bigotry can make our country great again.

I withstood him marrying a domineering woman, whose personality was nowhere near the salt to his pepper.

I forgave so much and I’m ashamed to say that it took another’s eyes to open mine to the fact that I had allowed my rubbish heart to win the war despite that my mind thought it to be a fool.

I had listened to an organ incapable of reason and it had led me astray.

Unconditional love caused poison to dilute my blood, before spawning a world of gingerbread and shortcake to cloak the toxic man breathing noxious fumes into my veins.

I extinguished the lies like tearing off a band-aid once it became clear that my dad was a broken man, empty of all empathy.

It’s been five months since I saw him last.

It’s been five months since the battle’s end.

And, it’s been five months since at long last my brain was deemed the victor.