My Pompeii

 Romantically speaking, I recovered.

I'm not currently "in love with" anyone.
Nor do I have the faintest clue who I'll end up with someday.
This isn't about that.
It's about what happened.

For me, this is the song of what a predator [This guy] (clinical Narcissist and sociopath) did to my family, starting 16 years ago.

It reminds me of what George Carlin once said:
"All the problems in the world...ALL of them...can be traced back to what fathers do to their sons."

This song reminds me of how I accidentally helped make it possible for him to infiltrate, capture, and devastate people I held dear.

I lived outside of the city gates.
Left to my own devices, most of the time.
But I was the city guard.
The Sentinel.
The Father.
The kin and the kindred.

When the unseen threat approached, I was caught unprepared.
All of us were.

He had been waiting. Watching. Scheming.
He moved in the shadows for a very long time, exploiting critical vulnerabilities.

Tunneling in, beyond the reach of my vision.
Before I realized it, the threat had penetrated the city.

The mote's bridge raised.
Gates locked from the inside.

By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late.

I failed.

One day, there was "us".
The next, there was not.

The city's glory, a beacon of light and love, ...
fallen.

Children suddenly unsafe.

Bridges burned.

Alone.
Ablaze.
Gasping.
Voiceless.
Powerless.
Confused.
Guilty for failing duties I was ill-prepared for.

For a time, I cursed our queen for surrendering.
But in truth, all of us fell prey to a force we did not yet understand.

One day I had a people.
My people.
My Pompeii.

The next, I did not.

A new flag rose above the city.
It read "The Kingdom of Stafford".

Years later, he was cast out for habitual and criminal abuses.
And yet, his name remained; a permanent family identity ... for those he once ruthlessly ruled over, with gluttonous desires and fattened fists.

The Family of Stafford's.

His name is his statue.
A memorial of his identity.
An enduring imprint of identity upon those once held captive.

I guess what Captain Malcolm Reynolds said still holds true:
"It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sumbitch or another. Ain't about you, Jayne. It's about what they need."

A collective people need a story for their collective identity.

And even though that's not "about me", it does make an incidental and eternal distinction;
a narrative of personal and collective identity that continues to separate all the other survivors ... from me.

I suppose that's more than fair, given that it was my job to protect them.

It may well be poetic and just... that the people I love most in this world will always fly the crest of the petulant manchild who bested me.
-A forever reminder of how I failed everyone, including myself.

I could never don that crest.
My pride would never allow it, nor would I ever surrender any marker of my identity to honor a predator.

And yet, it doesn't matter that he is an unrepetent villain.
Legends aren't really about the true nature of an icon, but rather about the hopes, hardships, and collective identity of those who survive.

The remaining residents of the great city he once conquered ... rebuild in his name.

But I remember the BRICKS, as well as the *bracks.
[*Archaic / Dialectal: It means a break, crack, or fissure in a solid object, or a flaw in woven cloth.]

That's when I was much more than "A (p)Person".

I remember the true beauty of the "us".

Sometimes, even today, when I close my eyes, I remember our great home.

For a moment, it feels almost like it still stands as it was.
Like I'm still there within those sacred walls.

-With my family.

My people.
- At least one of whom is now lost to me forever.

He stole memories, relationships, and identities.

He stole massive amounts of everyone's health.
- A parasite; draining life from others to compensate for the absence of life within itself.
Such men were directly what the early vampire stories were based on.

He stole years away from the only life any of us will ever have.

He erased the entirety of other people's timelines.
Our rightful journeys of shared connections and beautiful memories.
Connections lost and forgotten.
Memories forgotten by those too young to remember.
So many other Memories never made.

And he never lost a single moment's sleep over it, because like all MAGAmaniacs, his soulless child's ego has taken deep refuge within delusional fantasies of being the Main Character and the Hero; never counting the costs to the innocent lives devastated by his weaponized Cosplay.

Darkened skies.

Screams muffled in the dark and choking ash.

The perpetual storm of his volcanic selfishness left a wake of tragedies.
-A charred and timber-fallen swath of destruction, suffering, and loss.

Such utter devastation.

Such pointless waste.

Those left struggling to survive and rebuild ... might never be the same.
Because of him, those I hold dear all have forms of PTSD; a "cause" he officially cares about, despite being a prolific cause of it.

It's like a habitual arsonist who raises arson awareness.

And yet, among the survivors of his misguided violence, ...
A great spark of life remains and rekindles.

With hope, or with fear.
Tomorrow comes.
How will we choose to greet it?
---
Oh, where do we begin?

The rubble or our sins?

Oh, oh, where do we begin?

The rubble or our sins?

And the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we love.

Grey clouds roll over the hills, bringing darkness from above.

But if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

And if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like you've been here before?

How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

If you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

https://open.spotify.com/track/3gbBpTdY8lnQwqxNCcf795?si=4a73c06004bb44c9
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ChatGPT disagrees with me about my belief that this debt is mine to carry.

https://share.google/aimode/Me1aJNSID7vrjELt6