On a Parent's Love

Is their love a cliffside at sea, where our raging tides and blistering storms hold no sway? Where they simply batter the bluff with no hope of reaching the peak and where the simple prospect of a breach is absurd? Can logical discord not be had once this wall is erected, shielding them and keeping us from their innermost bastions of reason? To every wave that comes to it, hoping for refuge (or perhaps to simply to be accepted by this bitter crag), does it respond with utter surety, "You know I love you." And what have we to say to that? In our hearts, it's clear that this is but a passing storm, whose tumultuous waters will recede, but does that mean they should not cry out at all? Does their love negate our rage, our sadness, or our confusion? And if we dare posit that they are but scared of the truth in this clear ocean, then they respond, cleaving off a portion of themselves as sacrifice and thrusting it onto us with the weight of generations, "How dare you-" and so it begins.

So we must then be sheepish water, not to ever beat upon their sturdy gates nor question their existence. But then if we are lambs to the slaughter, to be fed only till death do us part, then why do they expect us to shed the skin and become wolves at an age? From upon that rock they sneer at the sea, bemoaning their misfortune and by the same hand throwing salt into it. But if we so much as try to throw the salt back, to send it spitting up at them and watch their ogling eyes fail to compute the gravity of this transgression, then we are quickly shown the cliff of, "I love you."

This is known, now, to be the truth. We are the sea of Us, ringed by cliffs which resemble the visages of our forebears. At every misstep they laugh and squeeze the lemon of, "I told you so", into our shamed waters. At every triumph they do not hesitate to send down a bucket and bring some water to boast to God, "We did it!" And at every faltering in the weather, be it a smattering of rain or a typhoon, they retreat from the precipice and show us the ender of all, "I love you."

And it must be this way, and I have known it no other way. To receive criticism over that which I am and that which I love, and be expected to show naught but love in return. And how preposterous is that? My cheeks are beaten and raw and yet still I'm expected to turn another one? Am I doomed to be questioned, poked, prodded, and gouged like a laboratory specimen, and then by the same token work for my scientists? To simply be is never enough, they want answers which I do not possess, they seek to make me that which I am not, and once I storm, once I show the power which God has bestowed upon me, they say, "You know we love you." And I am left to turn the other cheek.