Every conversation with him

Had a second room
Where the shadows lived

I learned to move carefully
Or the floor would collapse

In the orbit of his shadow, one false rotation was punished
With imbalance for a full rotation
For the entire solar system

He called it discipline
I called it control

Food was a bargaining chip for the weak
Silence was his domain and I was his prey
He moved quietly through our field
Until one of us broke a branch

Authority lived in small things
The way you moved your hands while eating
How you talked and the way your voice reverberated
And how quickly you apologized
For the crimes you didn’t commit

The house split open one night

My mother’s voice shattered like glass
He stood in the door like a monster
With a cigarette between his fingers

He wasn’t supposed to smoke
That was our rule

UPGRADE TO PAID FOR 5$ A MONTH

But the rules bent around him
Like gravity belonged to him

I stood between them
A child called diplomacy

Her anger voiced behind me
His silence in front of my face

Both waiting
For me to crumble

I was a mediator for two adults
Caught in the body of children

I swallowed myself
So their bodies would survive

My body remembers things my mind tries to bury
Like a promise that was meant to be kept
A rule meant to be enforced

Sometimes I hear his voice
Through my mouth
Through our anger

That tone.
That cruelty.

Measured, controlled
And sharp enough
To make a room go quiet

I catch my reflection

And for a moment
It isn’t my face

It’s his posture
standing there

I step outside and light a cigarette
The flame opens like confession

Cigarette smoke curls out of my lungs
The way it climbed from his
In that doorway

In that moment
I understand his inheritance

It’s the quiet ways
You’re taught to exist

And some nights when the smoke leaves my lungs
I wonder if it’s really me smoking the filter
Because I chose the life

Or because
I never really left his orbit

AUTHORS NOTE: Do you think you’ve escaped the patterns you collect from your parents?