What patience costs

The man in the kitchen window with the silver watch. I told my brother I could not explain why he frightened me and that is the most honest thing I said all night. I did not say it because I do not have the language for it yet.

He was not afraid. The homeowner was afraid — he shoved me hard enough to put me into the doorframe with the bite wound forward and he was filming the whole time, which is its own kind of fear. But the man in the kitchen just stood there. Watching. Patient. Like he already knew how the next two weeks would go. That is what frightened me. Not the violence. The certainty.

Pieter Viviers takes a key out of someone else's ignition and does not explain himself and I have not slept properly since. This man at the window had the same quality. Authority that does not perform. Competence that does not need an audience. I deal with things that bite and strike because it is the only place I am sure of myself and now I have met two men in as many weeks who do not need to be sure — they just are — and I cannot stop thinking about it.

I named my father's stoep in a threat tonight. Out loud. To a stranger. I do not talk to that man but I used his address as leverage and I drove away with his name still in my mouth and I do not know what that costs yet.

Citrusdal at first light. I need to be moving when I think.