Who is my real father?
RICHIE, Woodstock, NY

Goth Kid replies:
Fathers? Let me tell you something about fathers. A father is the guy who looks at you and says, "What would you like for dinner?" Dinner, huh? Why doesn't he just ask me why I put on black make-up and dress in black and have no soul? Why doesn't he tell me what he really means, that I was an accident on the night the condom broke when he and my "mother" were celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary by drinking Franzia and eating crappy Thai food and that I was their "favorite accident?" Favorite? They must be joking like when the so-called "God" thought he could impose his fascist beliefs on the world saying that the Devil is bad and Hell is an awful place when, in fact, it is the only place that welcomes tortured souls like my own like the jaws of a rabid wolf welcome the taste of mortal flesh. My father should just tell me that I am not as good as my brother and that the world would be a better place (if that's even possible, as it's just the dump where decaying bodies gather flies and maggots and get recycled into this never-ending pit of despair) without me. I know how he feels about me, that is, if I've ever really been able to feel. He wishes I were dead so that he, my mother, and my brother could continue their jaded existences without my atheism challenging their hopes of utopia. The only perfect world is one where I'm alone to wallow in my own misery - then and only then can I be happy.

Richie, the only reason you should have for wanting to find your father is so that you could thank him for abandoning you to spare you the feelings of doubt and shame he'd cast at you. And you shouldn't have to thank him; he brought you into this Ken and Barbie facade of a world where hope runs rampant like the sheep traveling back and forth from their jobs to their families to their jobs to their families with never the thought of why they participate in this conformist regime or why hope exists when the only end will be death. My true family is the one frowned upon by the curds of conformist society. With Darkness as my father and Death as my mother I will eagerly await what they have in store for me. Who cares who your father is? You have a new family now and we will hate each other as plain as black and white, and you will die, and that will be your only true solace.