Dawn

There was this patch of skin near my fathers’ ankle that never grew hair. It was on the interior of his shin, and it was always shiny. Shiny like the skin of a woman, newly shaven, clean, but dry and lacking elasticity and malleability. I thought it was the dress socks, rubbing off his hair as he pulled them on each early morning before the sun had peeked herself into the day. I always thought it was the chaffing of coarse wool against skin used to moisture of the England coast. I thought this, until he was gone. I had sought any excuse to not be like him, to not look like him, to not smile like him or have his chin, or that fiery heat in his eye when angered, or the smile. And then his light was snuffed, before I had a chance to appreciate any of this, and only then did I realize hair doesn’t grow on that section of my leg, either. I noticed this when I woke one morning, a bug bite on that hairless patch of shin, and remembered the cut I had given myself when he made it known to our family he was having an affair. It was like all that expectation was false, that egotistical controlled reality was a lie, and the pain that lie caused was inflicted into my skin, tattooed down to my soul. Remember. Remember this lie, remember this lack of love. Remember it with each step until death, I thought, as I sliced into nerve and connective tissue, only wanting to feel alive and relieve the pain in my heart. Bleed it out, bleed out the misery his fear had engrained into me. I couldn’t kill him, but I could kill part of me.

I stopped looking for him in the mirror. Until this morning, when I realized that cut was on my hairless shin, hidden from the prying eyes of outsiders. Only now do I realize how deeply my love goes.