MY FATHER’S BODY

I laid down inside my father’s body. I did this because you told me I could. That night I climbed aboard the mattress, as you rested beside him, and slipped inside his skin. It felt like falling. Like the moment right before unconsciousness when you catch yourself. Right before a clamshell heart is shucked open, forced to bare its ugly pink tongue. Now, when I look out of his eyes, I see his eyelashes.

I did this because you promised it would help us grow closer. He’s distant because he doesn’t know how to express his feelings. Most men are like that. They’re abandoned lighthouses—something’s snuffed them out. Maybe he snuffed himself out. He was a storm.

When I was young, I was afraid of my father. You knew this but could do nothing about it. You married a monsoon and gave birth to a sinking ship. So many times my father threw me into the public pool. He’ll learn to swim if he wants to live. But I swallowed the chlorinated water until my feet touched the plaster bottom. He wanted to grow me into someone bigger than him, and when being an obelisk wasn’t enough to do the trick, he disappeared like a flame between two fingers.

You told me the best way to get to know someone is through their body. I believed you, then, because you knew what I wanted more than anyone. You said the first time you spent the night with my father, you crawled inside his mouth. I watched his memories. It was like going to the movies. You crawled inside him every night after that. And, eventually, you discovered you could plant things. Arugula between his teeth. Spinach beneath his tongue. And, eventually, promises. Like the one about marrying you. Like the one about marrying you and making a baby. I cultivated his landscape. You planted me. But not everything takes root.

Now inside him, I can feel his body flexing, holding my presence the way a child does small birds—too tight. His breath cruciferous and sour. There is green everywhere. You have built a garden of leafy vegetables inside his organs. I wanted to plant peonies but they wilted. Too delicate. The hardier stuff isn’t as pretty—but at least it stays green. You said it helped to soften him. Like Spring.

He did not seem as large from inside. Around each green root, a raw pink sore and pustules. His lungs waterlogged and overgrown with kale. His spinal cord perforated by bok choy. I cannot feel what you say you’ve softened. Instead I feel an angry heat, scar tissue rejecting the artificial season you’ve sown.

In this way, my father felt so familiar. I fit inside him so well, inside his anger, like an unwanted twin. I did not want to leave the warmth of knowing him. I wanted to plant my own garden. I did not like the one you’d made.

Now, when I look out of his eyes, I see your body beside me. When you wake up, we will be gone.

---

Kas Armstrong is an artist and poet from central Arkansas. They are currently an MFA candidate at Virginia Tech, where they also teach. Their recent work can be found in Black Warrior Review, t’ART Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and elsewhere.