How To Lose A Knife by Taylor Hicklen
You were a Boy Scout and your dad gave you the pocketknife. It was red with the Boy Scout seal and the weight was uncomfortable at first. He showed you each part—the blade and the file and the tiny corkscrew—and you felt overwhelmed.
You were never good with sharpness. The boys at school talked about the thrill of a carefully aimed bullet or a smooth slice through a twig, and you didn’t know those things. All you knew is when you had a book in your hand, it sang. When you had a pen in your hand, it wasn’t a high, clear note, but it was a steady hum, and that was close enough.
It was your first campfire with the new troop and you wanted so badly to be liked. Even though you were mostly quiet and elbows and knees, you could feel something straining against your ribs. The possibility of releasing this loud, wild thing, this Not You. It was tempting.
The other boys scrambled for twigs. They scraped off bits of bark in the firelight, exposing the pale wood underneath. You felt in your pockets, but your knife was gone. So was your resolve. You curled up in the folding chair, knees tucked in, and watched the others. You were miserable.
You would find the pocketknife three days later in another pair of pants, and you would secretly be relieved.
Years would pass. You would be sitting in an advanced fiction class, searching for another weight in your pocket, and fail to find it. You would drive home that weekend. In between a whirlwind of laundry, you would find the dusty box in your closet. You would cradle the dusty red pocketknife in your palm. And then, in that empty house, your pen would sing.
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