Beast

by Luke Wortley

Geranimo/Unsplash

You can find the son at the back of a father’s throat if you’re listening. If you’re listening, it’s possible that you might hear the father’s complaints, the undertones of regret. Regret the self-effacing need to file down to the skin, to wear your wounds so red and open, even beneath your clothes. Beneath your clothes, your soul is a flight risk. Risk the absolute worst when it comes to immolation and renovation, the way it all comes crashing down in a spiral of lips and teeth. Lips and teeth the visible things that communicate want. The visible things that communicate want bleeding out on the ground. On the ground, a slavering beast. Beast is what they call you, if you’re looking hard enough. If you’re looking hard enough, you can find the origin of the father. The father who prayed to the liquor cabinet and drove a tractor through the fields under the stars. Under the stars a ceaseless blowing wind. Wind-whipped rain on the first day of school. The first day of school the discovery of the other woman, the other family, a Mercedes-Benz with hail damage on the hood, the screaming match and the leaving. Leaving, when practiced, is easy.

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Luke Wortley is a writer living in Indianapolis, Indiana. His fiction and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in monkeybicycle, Hobart, Best Microfictions, Pithead Chapel, Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. You can follow him on Twitter (@LukeWortley) or visit https://www.lukewortley.com/