Stone

The look.
The look on his face,
that stare.
That blank stare.

My knuckles so red
like this for the first time,
eye contact now locked,
his eyes cold and void of feeling,
unbreaking,
my eyes almost
as wide as his. But only for a second.

My eyes do not waver
and I take control over his
frozen state,
cold as my glare.

My hands thrust,
and he falls to the floor,
his body only moving
to adjust his view and
return his stone-like
stare back to my eyes,
his lips barely opening,
letting a
single
word
escape.

“Dad..”

Only shedding a single tear.
The cycle restarts
again
and again
and again.

He never complained,
he never retaliated,
he never stopped it.
It never stopped.

But the subsequent times,
he would get back up quicker,
stand back up higher,
until he would not be affected
any longer, standing like a stone.

I try again one more time,
my knuckles being stopped
by his head.

There are no more tears
and he looks back at me
with that gaze, now
not wide, but focused,
not rebellious, but resilient,
not void, but still cold as ever,
staring daggers into my soul.

My knuckles so red
like this so many times before,
eye contact now locked,
my eyes cold and void of feeling,
unbreaking,
my eyes wide
but now his no longer.

I am frozen,
frozen
like a
stone.