Knock, knock.

And I can hear it again. I don't speak about it like I used to, why would I? None of you can hear it, likely none of you ever will. But I am beginning to believe that's because your minds are too together to bear it, to allow it to slip inside. I am cracked, faded in a few places, I am surviving on the cusp of your world and his world.

Knock, knock. Jessica.

That's why I can hear him and its nothing like you believe. No haunting, gravelly voice in my room at night. Certainly not on the wind, now that would be insanity.

Knock. Let me in.

No, he's in the room with me. Seated on my new love seat making small talk about the weather and commenting on how I've changed. "it's been a while he says" and I nod demurely. "I don't need you as much. Ive too many things to hold on to here for me to think of leaving with you anymore." platitudes and sentiments and the sound of his tongue 'cluck, clucking' on the roof of his mouth in response to the decisions that brought him here once more. As he turns to the door he stops and faces me one hand on each shoulder.

Rough palms.

"You do realize that although I can visit and check up and then return to business as usual now, that I will not always do so. One day I will come without the intention of saying goodbye."

Click.

My father is not your father. My kind are few and far between, many in padded cells or medicated into oblivious humanity. Only by chance have I been capable of blending in.

I do not belong here but I do not belong there either, not yet.