it’s easier to consume pain than talk about IT

My body knew how to fight long before I did, long before my father told everyone that I was fluent in Czech at five, long before I was held up against his brother’s children and the wall with Christmas stockings swaying. 

We tiptoed around conversations about math and science but slide tackled at every Tuesday and Thursday soccer practice and my father came home purple and limping after krav maga more than once. 

My body was eleven when it became full of chia seeds: swallowed in a glass of water, pocketed in cottage cheese, shredded in a protein smoothie. He said, they'll make you thin, and so I put them in everything. 

We listened to The Verve and Clive Cussler and Ohio State Football in the car and I traced the creases in the tan leather like heart lines on a palm, my father saying, I’ll give you a dollar if you can name that singer, me always guessing, Myant Myant Aye? so that I could be right just once. 

My body, poker faced and shin splints. His, flushed and runner’s high. We paint. Me, with words. He, with agony.