I Closed It Before It Loaded

At the dinner I said something with an edge in it,

the kind that makes the table go quiet

for just a moment — not enough for anyone to name,

but enough. And then I laughed.

That was his move. That was exactly his move.

I noticed on the drive home, or not noticed —

felt it, the way you feel a thing

in the jaw before you know you've been clenching.

The exact cadence. The slight upward note at the end

that means I am done and you should be done too.

By three AM I was in the kitchen

with the laptop open and the fan running loud

and I typed it: how to know if you are becoming your father.

Eight words. The cursor blinking.

I closed the tab.

Not because I was afraid of what it would say —

the internet doesn't know anything about my father,

doesn't know the specific frequency,

the way a room could reorganize itself

around one mood without anything being said.

I closed it because the question was already the answer

and I wasn't ready for it to be a page I'd visited,

a thing with a timestamp, a record somewhere

of the exact hour I admitted it.

The fan kept running after I shut the lid.

I sat there in the loud quiet of it.

My hands in my lap.

Doing nothing.

Which is what I should have done at dinner.