new place new home not so new city but newly living there and riding city busses in the dark and the near and the dusk makes for new feelings of trepidation of fear of anxiety of nakedness without someone there beside
so son he asked father for a knife not to use on anyone and the father asked if the son would use it on himself
and the son looked down bare arms on desktop six years of hurting himself and he promised that no he would not use the knife on himself not then or ever again
the knife given then was a truly beautiful thing with all that blade and for an instant the old need to make bleed flooded the son like water through a ravine long since gone to cracked mud
but the son refrained from that because cracked mud can surely be beautiful too and even dead things can bring forth life from what they used to be
but then time passed as it so often does in seconds and minutes and days and weeks and months and then the father and the son were not under the same roof
and then came the days and weeks and finally months of silence
but that knife oh the knife it stayed not against flesh because that was one promise that would no longer be broken but instead inside of zipper shoulder bag pockets and tucked under couch cushions and shoved to the back of piles on top of a new desk
and time how it continued to pass until the son had graduated and there was no father to watch him as he walked down that aisle and to the row of seats all proud and head held high in his black gown that officially marked the son as being a male
and time how it continued to pass until the son stopped answering the fatherβs phone calls and who can blame the son because the child should not have to continuously hold together that lame excuse for a father and son relationship
and time it is still passing and the son well he still has that knife in his life constantly moving around places in his room that is not just a corner of the living room and a desk and a bed because he has all those things now but the father is not in his life
and knives and tattoos even gifted from father to son are not the same as having a father that actually wants you