I want to say viewer discretion is advised? Well, keep that in mind. I think this may be the worst level of violence I make you guys suffer through. But I think you need the brutal truth of what actually goes on in this world, and not a toned down version.

Dear Jonah,

Webster's Dictionary defines the word "control" as the power or authority to guide or manage. If you are strong enough, you can choose to have the authority to take control of your own life. Sometimes, though, whether you think you're strong enough or not, the decision is made for you. When someone else takes control of your life, it is amazing how easy it becomes for you to comply, without even blinking. Somehow, you forget the past, and put out of your mind the consequences you already know to have happened, and you do as you are told, with whatever it takes. You pretend this is what you want, even when you will never really know for certain. You can fake a smile, but you will never feel the joy behind a real one. You can pretend you feel whatever you want—become the world's greatest actor. But you never truly feel, because you are not allowed to think, only do. For almost as long as you've lived, you've been taught how to think, act, and feel; who you're not allowed to speak to, where you can't go, what you're forbidden to remember. You suppress your tears because you remember that real men don't cry. You don't rebel, because you are taught not to. You might escape, if you knew how. But this control has been your way of life for so long, that your mind closes with your eyes as you allow them to take over, and you can't see any other way, other than to let yourself be blind, bruised and broken.

(Joe)

When sunset finally melted into dusk, my shift was over, and it was time to head home for the night. I clocked out for the night, carefully avoiding eye contact with a number of coworkers as I began to walk the short distance from work to my pathetic, unsuitable home. It really wasn't too shabby of a place, but when you led a life like mine, if it had been a mansion complete with 6 personal butlers, it still would have been the worst place imaginable to live.

I approached my house, readying my feet so that they were in position to make no noise at all, when I encountered and made eye contact with my father. He stood on the front porch with bare feet and a bare back, arms crossed with a stern expression almost glued to his face. I knew he'd been waiting for me to return from work. "Where the hell you been boy? Your pop's been waitin' for you all night." The tone of his voice suggested he was angry, but that wasn't any different from any other Tuesday. I knew that this was only the beginning of the night.

"Well what are you doin' just standin' there, you ignorant piece ah shit? Get your ass inside!" Ignoring the burning daggers he shot me with his eyes, I did as told, undoubtedly his slave.

Upon entrance, a terribly unpleasant aroma promptly burned my nasal passages. It smelled strongly, like bleach and burning rubber. My eyes shifted around the room, searching for the source of the putrid smell, when I noticed an open flame on the gas stove that had not been tended to. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it actually was burning rubber. There was a pair of shoes on the stove and a small pile of ruined ones next to it. They were my shoes, of course. But God help me if I ever questioned his reasoning for destroying all of my shoes. In fact, God would strike me down if I ever questioned his reasoning at all.

"So, son, how was school today, hmm?" my father asked. I didn't wrinkle my nose at his breath which reeked of lingering alcohol; the fear crawling in my skin too intense to activate a reaction in my brain.

"It was fine. Like usual," I replied dully, making sure not to emphasize anything that he would perceive as "giving attitude."

Without giving any acknowledgement that he cared or even heard what I said, he turned to the refrigerator and pulled out a plastic red cup. Wearing a grin decorated with vice and evil, he asked,

"You thirsty? Here, drink this. I been savin' it just special for you." Sometimes I found it amazing how I managed to understand what my father said through his muttered, slurred vocabulary.

Without a second guess, I placed my hand on the cup and brought it up to my lips. The fear of what would ensue had I refused the drink was stronger than my will to question what it was. As it snaked down my throat, I fought against all my reflexes not to immediately spit it out and soak my mouth in soap. Instead, I swallowed a mouthful, along with the vomit that had risen out of my stomach. Setting it down politely on the counter in front of me, I asked with a whisper, "What is it?"

Suddenly, my father doubled over in a disgusting, displeasing laughter. "Bahaha! It's my piss, you fuckin' retard!"

I kept my face an unreadable blank, though I had never been so repulsed in my life. Everything was a test with my father, and failing was much worse than any humiliation he could ever push me through. I don't feel. I can't feel. I told myself all the things I needed that would be sufficient enough for me to get through this. This could have been worse. I've been through worse.

But did that make it better?

Suddenly, my father's laughter sobered, and he stared at me, eyes raging with fire. "God, take a joke you prick!" I only stared straight back into his eyes. Or, at least, I pretended to. I had perfected the art of glassing my eyes over so that I was looking at them, rather than into them. He then snatched the cup from the spot in front of me, and spilled the rest of its contents all over me. It matted in my hair, trickled down the sides of my head and into my shirt, down my back, spreading like sweat.

"That oughta teach you to have a fuckin' sense of humor! Come'ere boy! You still ain't laughin'? Don'tcha enjoy my humor? I'll teach you to respect me and my authority, boy! Get here." He grabbed me by the wrist, and drug me over to the still open flame, snickering like he had an embarrassing secret he was keeping, and it was about to burst. "Put yo' hand on the stove," he said.

For the first time, I opened my mouth to protest, but when I looked over to my beckoning, menacing father, I snapped my jaw shut, and closed my eyes, and did as told, blocking out the raging, horrific pain. It smelled retched and awful, again like burning rubber. Somewhere between the searing and swearing inwardly, I had found myself wondering what it was like to be in a concentration camp. To be ripped away from your family, and forced to strip down to your bare skin, and shoved in a gas chamber. Or to become charcoal in a human oven. I weighed my options, and decided that although, both were slow deaths, I'd rather right now gradually suffocate as a foreign gas poisoned my lungs than burn alive, until I was nothing but ashes. Sometimes I thought about several different ways I could die, just so that I could compare the pains of suffering immensely once to the nightmare of torment every day. Maybe one day this pain would be the death of me.

Huffing and puffing like a rapid train, my father rushed over to me, frustrated that I hadn't given in to his game yet, and pressed my arm into the flame, from elbow to wrist. The flames licked at my skin, turning it black and bloody, literally boiling my blood. It was my biggest feat ever that I was able to hold back the cries of agony; amazing really. I didn't give a single word as the blazing flames broiled my skin.

"Damn, you just all set out to burst my fuckin' bubble, ain't you, you fucker?" There was a repeated clicking sound as he turned the dial on the stove until the gas-produced fire flickered off. My sigh of relief caught in my throat as the force of his hands against my chest threw me off my feet. As I fell to the ground, the crown of my head caught on the edge of the counter, creating a huge gash. Gravity was a fucking bitch as I landed on the kitchen floor, finally howling out my lungs as the linoleum melted into the open-wounded flesh on my arm. "That's right, scream, like the little pig you are! Squeal, boy! You pussy!" I tore my forearm away from the tile, which was ten thousand times more terrifying than any band aid anyone had ever had to rip off. I got one small glimpse of the linoleum welded into my grimy, bloody arm before the world began to dim. My hair felt damp, and I knew it was from the gash. As tears streamed from my tear ducts, I could still almost hear the grimace in my father's faint voice. "Cry, you fucker. That's right cry." There was a sharp pain in my abdomen, and I knew he had begun to kick me. With much force, he collided his foot repeatedly into my ribs, gut, and even once in the crotch, calling out foul names.

Suddenly, the pain vanished as I lost control of all senses entirely. I was envisioning swimming in the dark waves of the ocean. Only I wasn't really swimming, only floating awkwardly. Or sinking. There was a weight tied to my ankle, and I floated down through darkness. My lungs became pressured and my chest compressed, and I realized then that I wasn't swimming, or floating, or even sinking. I was drowning.

Death was an interesting sensation, after all. Not quite pleasurable, but almost. Like it was my time for this.

Review, please! :)

With Love, Carlie :D