more behind me than ahead. there’s your life you see? out there before you, and you rush. you rush like mad. there’s no need sweet child, slow down. it’s not a race, it’s not even a marathon. you’ll get there, eventually.
it will all come to you: good things and bad. loose teeth and growth spurts. hand holding and first kisses. shallow breaths and long sighs. skinned knees and acne. rough lousy mornings and secret late nights.
slow down. take it from me who has less ahead than behind. and the end, the end comes soon enough to all things: the end of childhood, the end of firsts, the end of youth, the end of hope, the end of innocence, the end of pride.
then it all begins again: but not for you, never again for you. never, ever again.
listen: time, time is a relentless and ruthless beast.

i am useless and without hope. i spearhead but do not lead. i can figure it out, but have nothing to show for it. i do not know how i came to this, i do not know how i’ve so little time left. a lifetime and this was it, squandered and so very alone. so untouched, unmarked, unremarkable, unscathed, but scathing, vicious, cruel and ultimately, ultimately worthless.

in my mind ioanna, i have this vision of you. we’re driving somewhere and i glance over my shoulder. i see you, your head leaning against the window watching the world go by. shadows made by a sun cutting through leaves dances across your face. you are silent. and this is how i picture you, an immense internal world locked within you: unknowable, impenetrable, and all yours. i wish i had the keys to unlock it, to climb in and sit with you as we watch the world go by. when i say i wish i was a child again so that we could be friends, i am not kidding. i’ve squandered much of my life and i wish i could make a list of the things you need to be careful of, what possibly your genetic structure will be prone to. but that’s impossible. i cannot live for you, let alone live through you. i can only watch and hope to understand the solace you find yourself in. i can desperately hope it is nothing like my own.

i’d like to dream again, breathe again. can you do that for me?
and while i let go of all i could’ve been and left instead mundane and tired she says to me:
while you are nothing and are now all that you can ever be,
you are everything to them. never forget that:
you are everything.

it goes without saying, it goes on saying, speaking, rattling inside my head:
this isn’t you, it never was you, it was you all along.
and my head spins and my stomach churns, this sick pit
rolling around and across
i could have been more, i could have done less damage
i could have remained alone and unwanted and free of guilt
i could have had nothing and that would have been everything
but instead, instead, instead:
a daughter who loves me, a son who needs me, a wife that forgives me
how terrible all this, to feel so undeserving, to feel so much
to dread the days, not day, but days that i will disappoint them
over and over
this is not, this has always been you
hanging by a thread, hanging by a noose
clutching at them to save me, pushing them away
to save them from what i should have been

i was dreaming, i once had a dream:
i was tall and strong and beautiful
i was nimble and sometimes very afraid.
but often times i was brave, braver than most.
i saw the world as an orchard and i had evberything that was promised to me.
above all else, i was a man of my word, a man of words.
but i was never any of those things.
i was craven and hostile, meek and angry.
i was a facade, everything was veneer.
the world was sour around me.
and now, now i no longer dream.
i am blemished and broken.
i am shattered and without respite.
the flowers that bloom around are under constant threat.
i want to protect from all things.
above all else, i want to protect them from myself.

he says, you dont write anymore.
i says, yes.
he says, this is a great sacrifice.
i say, no. it isn’t. it never was.
he says, we’ve talked before how you’ve squandered your gifts.
and i say, what gifts? i never had any gifts. i was a slighty above average kid in fairly below average neighborhood.
and that’s what it all was. no mystique, no mysticism. i rambled about a few times, strung together a few words, ideas. nothing too complex, nothing just flat out simple. but in the end, that’s all i ever was. slighty above average.

first end day as 38, a dollar short and a day late,got a dog and it looks great. ach, nonsense.
but yes, turning a corner, and finding something. a lab/terrier mix, three and half month old. from north shore animal league in and out in less than 2 hours.
have we become one of those type of people? friend says, “dogs are animals that are filthy and untrustworthy and can at a moment’s notice revert to instinct and rip your face off.”
oh my.
but something about the dog, already the dynamic. in me, in ioanna, in mikey, even mari.
perhaps we needed this.
turned 38, just like that.