Page 159 of Wayfarers
anymore, kneeling bare-kneed in the glass,
shackled to this thing I’ve done.
Knox
“We’re your family.”
“That was another decision you made for me.”
“What, to be your mother?”
“To hit the road with everyone. You know a big reason why I left?”
“What?”
“Because I found out Pan is a sex offender. He’s dangerous. He’s a bad man. And Dawn is bad too. Maybe not a sex offender, who knows, but definitely dangerous. And exploitative.”
“Is it because of this girl you just met? Sylvia?”
I grip the sides of my head and growl. “Are you not listening to me? That group is toxic. There are some good people there, but there are predators. You shouldn’t be around them either.”
“I can’t leave them,” she murmurs.
“You can. I did.”
“They saved me. They gave me the life I wanted.”
“You can save yourself. You’re strong. You’re brave.” I didn’t really believe any of that but sometimes you have to speak stuff into being. “You can find joy living in a better, truer way than this.”
“One week in the world and it’s turned you. You don’t care about freedom anymore. It was that girl.”
“That girl sent me away after she found out I had anything to do with Dawn. Serves me right, I guess. Karma, like we were always talking about.”
Knox Impasse
Back and forth like that
for a while. Jousting, parrying,
looking for the crack in each other’s armor—
not to deliver a killing thrust,
but to insert the scalpel to excise
what had taken root in us
yet in the end, it was useless.
I asked her if she wanted
me to deliver some message
to her former mother-in-law and she said no,
and finally,
I walked away again, alone in the world
