my dad

near bedtime, very often and for years now, i get this unnameable WANT

it’s not h*rny of any variety and it’s not chocolate (which is what i always try first lol) (because it’s what my ex would feed me every time i had a ptsd nightmare)

but i think i figured it out? i think it’s cinnamon sugar toast, which my dad would make for me when I couldn’t sleep.

when i was a kid my dad was a really bad insomniac, getting about 30 minutes of sleep a night, and so if i wandered out of my shared bedroom in our tiny house he would be there in the garage, chainsmoking and watching cartoons.

(there are certain key phrases, ive found, that can activate even non-caretaking types into caretaking mode. for my dad, it’s “I can’t sleep.”)

he insisted, at all times of day, that the worst thing you could do for insomnia was lay around. he advocated for flipping your pillow and switching your head to the other end of the bed, and if that didn’t work, he would say the next step is to get out of bed and do something to tire yourself out.

when i whined “dad, I can’t sleep!” he would jump into action, using his rusty diner prep cook skills to make perfect toast with margarine (always margarine in our house). i would grab my star trek novel collection, which was a fat purple book with transcriptions of the episodes. i would read and munch until i was frankly bored to tears by the blow by blow account of the episode Charlie X, and i would then go to bed and finally be able to sleep.

as i transition, i think more and more about what it means to be a man, and what it meant and means to my dad. i wonder if we all become our parents in the end, and which parent I’m going to end up as. i think a lot about laying in bed at age 12 wishing for a “sex change” and then deciding i was going to stop thinking about it because there was no way my parents could afford it. i think about age 9 begging to be allowed to shave my head, and my dad saying he doesn’t want to look at anyone’s knobbly scalp, regardless of gender. i think a lot about how my mom insists she doesn’t snore.

when people have emotions around my dad, he is instantly bewildered. you can see it in the way his eyes widen into circles. he wants to fix you like you’re leaking oil. sometimes this comes in the form of an explosion, the impulse to beat you back into line. other times he is practically begging you to stop. but no matter what, he is absolutely appalled by any show of feeling.

im not like that, am i? when people have emotions around me, do i just wish for it to stop? am i a safe person to cry to? am i a safe person to slam doors around? do i laugh and joke and do a little jig to avoid anything, anything that might smack of strife?

i am my dad, but shorter. i am my dad but ive been r*ped. i am my dad but with the knowledge that my perspective isn’t always the truth. i am just a man, with hands.

Prescription

i have hit the cold floor again.

my lovers are sleeping soundly, dreaming
that i am still between them

while i grip the kitchen sink, taking sandpaper
to my frontal lobe,
feeling the solitary sage capsule
rattle in my ribcage.

i have cut my hair and
practiced violin and
thrown out my scissors and
i have been a man and
not,

but at least i have a perfect sense of direction.

Father/Son Dance

I am the child that crunched up near the tire grease and spectated intently
and delighted in the music of your voice, the nonsense rhymes
of chrome&cog mechanics

& when I jubilantly said I'd grow up to be Daddy, the miscommunication made you dream
of blueprints and lava soap, and crescent wrenches laid out like piano keys

but what I wanted
was feet to fit your boots,
complete with hairy toes encased in steel

& not the endless meaningless blood,
in gushes and torrents and nauseous waves,
that was at first a shock, a day of tears, but then subsided
into another dull ache of resentment, bone-deep, chromosomal.

You could have passed on to me
the tribal drumbeat XY chant. Instead
my cells hum white noise, one syllable like the Hindu om, ringing like trapped water in my ears.

The peyote god has granted me a different dance but
there's no shining desert beyond the chrome of the kitchen when,
a decade later, we stand at the sink, arms newly scrubbed of grease

and I spit it up finally and your lips go thin and disappear
into your beard. I know our Anglican world won't abide
any of that silly vision business, or drumbeat dancing, or especially swapping

and so the demon Lady Luck clamps down her teeth,
tightening her grip right where it hurts.