circumnavigation

​when you get home, your father is waiting
in the kitchen, wearing his gray sweatshirt
and half-inch-thick glasses. the day’s
irritations already lining his face, dragging
his eyebrows towards his mouth. you say
hello, make sure not to meet his eyes.
he points wordlessly at his cheek and you
stretch up to kiss it, the feathery whisper
of a smashed bird. for him, love is connected
at the ribs with fear, with control. he’s wrung
every drop of forced affection from you
since before your legs could stand on their own,
in every burning scalp, in every blotched-red,
stinging cheek. you wonder if he really can’t
sense the barrier of quiet, wary unease
you wear just for him. or if he can, and forces
his way in anyway. your father sits you down
to eat dinner. you speak only in yeses, no’s,
and I don’t know’s. how you’ve mastered the art
of binding your own tongue. on your way
to bed, light splays out from the crack under
his bedroom door. you can hear a woman’s
voice inside, faint and soothing. you tell
yourself it must be the tv. back away and creep
silently to your room— expertly, instinctively.
like only years of experience can teach you how.

Isla Cueva is a writer from Arizona.