Rural Patricide, K. Blair
Updated: May 7, 2021
CW: religious horror, threats of violence, threat of human sacrifice
He takes me to the corn field where the sky is so vast it could swallow you and the corn so high I feel like a child again escorted by my father to a makeshift altar
I’ve always hated my lower back being touched
perfect place to stick a knife
he knows this so his hand hovers
as if his palms will burn if he makes contact
he has spent a lifetime being a hands off parent
a presence at my shoulder that
looms like the approaching Harvest
This morning he told my mother
we’d have to hire more help
a bumper crop is promised
she wept into the frying pan
I won’t be the first to bleed for a farm what is a daughter if not another fertile field?
plant a knife in my breast and watch what I yield
Fathers care about ceremony
it’s the principle of the thing your best white dress an antique knife no one considers the worth of the ram
the value of experience
No one considers the lamb cottoned on pretty quick
had time to plan
had time to meditate on the
best way to get a knife between ribs
strike while the iron’s hot and his back is turned
then follow through with tradition
after all it’s what my father taught me
K.Blair (she/they) is a member of London Queer Writers, and is a part-time host of their LGBTQ+ spoken word night, SPEAK =. They have recently been published in Opia, From the Farther Trees, HAD and Wretched Creations magazine. Find her in the wild, on Twitter: @WhattheBlair, and Instagram: @urban_barbarian.