if you were to do it all again, what would be different:
i would have done it all again but with fists and rage and sensibility
i would’ve done it right and made no wrong turns: i would’ve been unstoppable.
i would’ve been a cop, a detective, a us marshal, a professor, a poet.
i would’ve died protecting a judge, died stopping a robbery, disabled because i tripped down a flight of stairs in the projects.
i would’ve died clutching a bottle, would’ve spent many nights alone staring out into empty streets long abandoned by youth.
i would be here all over again, but with nothing.
so no. i wouldn’t do it all over again. i would leave it just as it is. with their hugs and shrill laughter and her gentle touch. i’d leave it just like this despite everything i could’ve been.

a i see them all wither away like stop motion photography, the setting of the gray, the wilting of skin, the time lapse of bones into dust.
i see this and see this and cannot run away, my precious loves, my mother, my father, my wife, my children, my skin, my eyes, my life, gone, slow-fast, in an instant, an eternal forever, just like that.
time, you fucking animal, why cant you leave us alone.

at some point to return, in lilacs, in dust, in tumbleweeds and tufts of matted fur. how about that, how about lice and lace and mesh and barbed wire and the tongues of children caught on the pointy bits like we were all massacred before someone could care. or perhaps past caring, perhaps we had deserved it all: towers set aflame by the wild desire of middle eastern boys promised haughty virgins and a seat at the right hand of allah, of god, of jehovah, of yahweh.
yes, yes, a return to all that; and your children sleep and dream and whisper if there are tooth fairies even in greece.

kick my teeth in with your love, your rambunctious living, your laughter, your tears. little girl, little boy, you strike me into nothingness, into meat. i am pale and stricken before you: you run me in circles. i believe in you and fear your future. you are everything i could’ve been and never can be

the worst of it all is you now live for others, no longer for yourself: all you could’ve have done, all you could’ve amounted to, is done, in the past, wistful and soon forgotten. there is nothing more for you: you’re merely kindle at this point, for your children’s fire.
if at that.

did you ever think it would get easier? panic abounds. gritted teeth and an excuse to wrestle the pillow. too hot, too cold, too soft, not hard enough, not dead enough, too much alive, too fearful to let go, and time slips, time presses on, time abuses you, time mocks me, molasses the days but lightening quick nights. she will leave you one day. he will look at you with disgust. she will find no way to console you and tire of it herself.
panic abounds, panic abounds, and makes marbles of you.

are there things broken? yes, obviously. never mending. daisies greyed out and lost to harsh winds. that’s silly, empty out the mind, what do you see?
i see a vast acres of nothing, blank slate, stale ground, arid field.
i see weeds and cracked patches of densely packed earth.
i see myself in the middle of it all, wordless, tongueless, handless, immobile and futile.
i see time and growth and death and life without me and it brings me to my knees weeping.
i cannot live forever and cannot get past that simple fact.

started phentermine, completely knocks out my appetite. the first couple of days, i was somewhat giddy, more energetic, doing push ups around the house on the random, etc.
calmer but not sharper. more patient but with a bit more bang when i do get annoyed.
almost didn’t eat.

a life, which life, this one. endlessly. they just don’t get it. like broken windows that whistle for days between hurricanes and thunderstorms. not one and the same. different. the fear has nothing to do with children. there’s is nothing terrifying about a children. no. everything about a child or raising children or loving your children is terrifying and wonderful and painful and tremendous but not fear striking. not terror. this is what he does not understand: it’s real. it’s the realest thing i have ever known. or will know. i know exactly how it will be. one day there, then not. that’s what we’d all like to be believe. in our sleep, in a pseudo womb and we’re gone. but all that is missing the point. the error lies in the time between: the growing old, the hair loss, the decay, the wearing down, the wearing out, the beaten leather and loss of youth. the point of no return.
but it’s stupid: the point of no return is everyday, every hour, every minute, every second: you plow on relentlessly, driven and without respite or cause. you just go because there is no stopping.
“there was a fly in your coffee and i was terrified of waking you
-but you stopped.”
lucky fucking bastard.

o little boy i almost snapped you back in half, you pitched forward with such glee, such abandon, such wild joy and up up into my hands i held you aloft but you wanted to keep going, kept pitching forward and i couldn’t hold onto you my son, i couldn’t, i couldn’t stop your momentum and i tried so very hard, i tried with such determination, but your body folded in completely the wrong direction and i heard the softest of cracks, so soft and sharp and the world froze and you yelped like an animal and barely muttered for your mother and i held you close, held you tight, maybe it would all go back together if i held you and i tested your feet, made you stand while you cried gobs of tears and made you wiggle your fingers, your toes, i made you stand further away and asked you to walk to me and when it appeared you were alright i held you tighter still and finally wept and sobbed and you told me it was okay, you were okay, i didn’t have to cry, you were alright, you were alright.