Letter to My Son at Eighteen

You are leaving. I know this the way I know weather— not from the forecast but from the feeling in the bones of a house that has held you for eighteen years and is about to learn a different kind of quiet. Your room will stay your room. I won't make it an office. I won't make it anything. It will hold the shape of you the way a glove holds a hand that's already gone. I want to say: the world is not what they told you. It is both worse and better, often on the same Tuesday, sometimes in the same hour. I want to say: be kind. Not because it's moral but because it's efficient— kindness opens doors that force cannot find. I want to say: call your mother. Not because she worries— she does— but because your voice on the phone is the sound of the house remembering it has a heartbeat. But I'll say none of this. I'll say: drive safe. I'll say: did you pack enough socks. And you'll know— you have always known— what I mean.