Koosl0v
The Boy My Father Brought Home
The night my father brought him home,
I knew our house would never feel the same again.
He stood at the doorway like he didn't belong to the world we lived in-
too quiet, too bruised, too careful with his eyes.
As if one wrong look might get him sent back to wherever he came from.
My father said his name once.
I barely heard it.
All I could focus on was the way he held himself,
like someone who had learned that silence was safer than truth.
He slept in the room across from mine.
Close enough that I could hear him breathe at night.
Far enough that I pretended he didn't exist.
But pretending is easy only at first.
Because boys like him don't stay invisible.
They slip into your thoughts,
your nightmares,
your quiet moments when the house is asleep
and you're left alone with everything you're not supposed to feel.
He wasn't family.
He wasn't a guest.
And he was never meant to be mine.
Yet somehow, from the very first night,
he already was.