Fire & Gasoline
The story of my life doesn’t begin with me. It begins with two people who should have never been together in the first place—my mother and my father. They were like fire and gasoline, always on the verge of explosion. My mother, Elizabeth “Lisa” Longo, was a woman with a heart too big for the life she was given. My father, Wallace Rolland Longo, found solace in the bottom of a bottle. But they weren’t always like this. There was a time when laughter echoed through our home, when the smell of barbecue drifted through the air and we went on family outings like we were any normal American household. There was a time they smiled at each other.
Lisa and Wallace married young. She was twenty, he was twenty-one. He was a Commander in the United States Military, polished and proud, a man who wore his uniform with the kind of pride that could blind you. She was a girl who had barely escaped her own battlefield. They got married fast—fast enough to look like love, fast enough to feel like a way out. And they never got divorced. Even as time and trauma chipped away at whatever bond had once existed, the legal knot remained.
My mother was raised with what the world might’ve called “values,” but those values were built on broken promises and bruised skin. She was the oldest of five—Mildred, Donna, Robin, and Billy came after her—but she bore the weight of being the first, the test subject, the scapegoat. Her mother, twisted and cold, used punishment as sport. My mom was forced to eat off a carpet like a dog once, just for asking for a little more food. Her father—may he rot—molested her. Then he vanished. Took off and disowned her for no reason that made sense, not that there could ever be a good one.
Lisa became the protector by default. The big sister with scars no one wanted to see, the mother figure before she had even reached puberty. Her trauma was a shadow that never left, even when she smiled. And yet, she tried. My God, did she try. She poured every drop of love she had into her children, even when she had nothing left for herself.
My father’s story was no less tragic, but it was covered in a richer veneer. He came from money. His mother was an opera singer, a talent that demanded attention and opened doors most people never even knew existed. She was supposed to go on tour, to sign a major contract and bring her voice to the world. But she never made it. Cancer took her when my dad was just five. That kind of loss doesn’t just wound you—it hollows you. Wallace was raised in a house that looked perfect from the outside but was filled with the type of grief that sticks to your skin.
He grew up fast, joining the military and climbing the ranks like he had something to prove. Maybe he did. Maybe he was trying to outrun the silence left by his mother’s death. He met Lisa at a time when they were both searching for something: a home, a purpose, a reason not to fall apart. For a moment, they gave that to each other. But you can only outrun your demons for so long.
I was born on November 9th, 1992. A Scorpio through and through—stubborn, intense, and always ready to fight for what I believed in, even when it meant fighting my own blood. My earliest memories are stitched together with chaos. Screaming matches over dinner. Doors slammed so hard they cracked. Broken furniture. Bruises hidden behind long sleeves and forced smiles. This wasn’t just dysfunction—it was war. And I was born in the middle of it.
I was five years old when the war finally ended, at least in the way I knew it. But the battles had been raging long before I took my first breath. The night it all came to a head, I was standing there, small and powerless, watching my father raise his fist to my mother. Something in me snapped. Without thinking, I ran at him, my tiny fist slamming into the back of his head. He stumbled forward, tripping over the rolled-up carpet beneath him.
The room fell silent. My mother’s breath hitched, her eyes darting between me and the man she once loved. I remember grabbing a wicker knickknack shelf, shaking it so hard that everything clattered to the floor.
“Can’t you two just stop?! You’re ruining me!” I screamed, my voice raw and broken. My mother lifted me into her arms, pressing my face against her chest, and turned to my father with tears in her eyes.
“See what you're doing to our son? Please, just stop.”
That was the last night they fought like that. Not because they found peace, but because my father left. Just walked out the door. And he never came back. But his absence didn’t mean things got better. No, it just meant the war changed battlefields.
My mother had to carry everything from that point on. The bills, the grief, the shame, the memories. And me. She tried so hard to give me normalcy, to smile when she dropped me off at school, to sit through parent-teacher conferences like she wasn’t dying inside. She’d cook dinner with hands that shook and eyes that always looked ten seconds from tears. But I saw it. I saw the weight of it all pressing down on her, crushing her little by little.
Even as a kid, the chaos imprinted itself on me like searing brand marks. Every shattered plate, every whispered plea, every night I lay awake listening to her cry—those moments became fuel. They didn’t just scar me; they shaped me. Made me fierce. Made me hard. Made me relentless.
I learned early on that vulnerability was dangerous. That if you let someone see your pain, they could use it against you. So I armored up. Built walls. Started talking back. Started fighting back. I wasn’t going to be a victim. I wasn’t going to let the world break me the way it broke them.
I still remember being eight years old, sitting in my room, writing in a cheap notebook I’d stolen from the school supply closet. I wasn’t writing stories. I was writing warnings. Lists of rules to survive. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t show weakness. Don’t cry in front of people. Don’t forget what they did.
But there were moments. Fleeting ones. Like when my mom would sing while cleaning. Or when she’d sit next to me and just hold my hand without saying anything. Those were the moments that kept me tethered. That reminded me love was still real, even if it was damaged.
My father resurfaced once. When I was twelve. He showed up unannounced, drunk, claiming he wanted to make things right. My mom slammed the door in his face. I watched from the window as he stumbled back to his car, tears streaking down his face. I didn’t feel pity. I felt rage.
How dare he think he could just come back?
How dare he believe an apology would fix the years he stole from us?
He left again. For good this time.
I never saw him again.
Extended Reflection:
That night when I screamed at them—it’s burned into my memory like a brand. I can still hear the trembling in my own voice, still feel the tremor in my limbs as I tried to make sense of a world that made no sense. That was the moment I became someone else. Someone stronger. Someone colder.
The scars of that night aren’t just physical or emotional; they’re the crucible that turned vulnerability into a weapon. I wear them like armor. Every time life tries to knock me down, I remember that little boy, shaking a wicker shelf, begging for peace. And I rise.
Because some fires, no matter how destructive, forge an unyielding will.
And I was born from that fire.
