Dad

I lie naked for the cloud-light tapping off my shoulders. Skewering bits of bone with cities hues reflected off night-time aerosols. I lie naked for the cold glow of manmade projections in the sky, and the tapping and the skewering and the refracted rays that split blues and reds and purples deep into my skin. We lie, too young, too old.

There was a reason, once. A motivation in the form of a day, or a year, or a life. In the form of a future and a past and a place and a planet. In the form of Other, there was. But now the day has passed, the year has left, the life has faded. We are this place and planet.

I lie naked for a lie, in a lie, with a lie. I lie, and he lies, and the clouds crowd closer. I lie in a future too far away. I lie in a past phony as city-light mirrored in the fog. I lie, and he lies, for something fading, or faded long ago. We lie, entwined in his wrinkled hands.

What kind of things happen behind the world’s eyes? What terrified, shivering secrets cling to the blind spots in the folds of its brain? Fate closes a door and opens another, but who lies abandoned in the room it has sealed? A breeze tumbling in with the sound of clicking locks. A night that worms its way into bone and blood.

And I lie naked, for fear, in fear. I lie, cold on the world’s uncaring shoulder, and he’s sorry, as he’s always sorry, but who says those things, these days? I lie, too young, unbruised, unhurt. Unsafe. I lie naked, for the silence that has bound me to this room. I lie naked for him, and we pretend he doesn’t notice.