is it because my life has been so trivial, the despair i feel over nothing worth mentioning?
this is partly why i resent therapy, or the idea of it: it rationalizes, trivializes, minimizes.
perhaps that is unfair. perhaps my perception of things has been unfair.
sometime i feel like it’s all been a joke, that there is, beneath the surface, a cruel and grinding reality that is waiting to chew us all up. or rather me.
it’s been a long time since i’ve made any sense whatsoever. or anything beautiful for that matter.
i look in the mirror and it’s all beast, it’s all naked aggravated thick flesh.
i hear myself speak and i cringe: why did i just say that? it’s as if i am dreaming a horrible nightmare and i am callous and impatient and i am screaming from within this isn’t me, this isn’t me, but it is.
deep down inside, this must be me.

at least one word. at least one thing.
ioanna and mikey, rough housing and wrestling and oh the feel of them like the promise of sleep that always escapes me, the weight of a promise i cannot fulfill but keeps me grounded, keeps me close to the shore.

is this the end, have we reached? the end to sorrow and pain and remorse and regret and the naggling and anxiety that all of this could’ve been better, that you could’ve done better by them for them? is this end?
no. it goes on like this. forever and more, cascading series of spirals and spirals. the trick is to keep your head about, or rather to keep your head out of it as much as possible.

and the webwork and the spindlewbes arch into the ether of all that is and all i will be and the coulds and shouldn’ts mean nothing, the hopes and laments mean nothing, the regrest and guilt once paramount become transparent, only the love of this, the children beside me, my love beside me, this in front of me, the capacity, the mere potential: yes, this can be enough, this can be extraordinary.

and the shaping of it, of him, of you, leaves you wretched, makes him cringe. how can i be this way, how can he fail like this over and over? how do you do it, day in, day out? does he feel no shame?
his daughter in your arms, you child, my child, i’m broken my little girl, he’s still trying to figure out how to be. do you want him to? do you really know how to live? can you fix him?

come back to it.
come back to the bleeding? no, no thanks.
no, come back to this.
i don’t think so. i don’t think i can anymore.
why?
because all writing is desire, it is longing, it wishing for things that are not there.
so?
so? and there’s too much here. there’s too much here to abandon and there’s nothing to want.
there’s nothing missing?
no, there isn’t. there’s simply too much living to be done.
that’s horseshit.
no, it is-
it’s utter horseshit and you know it. you’re undisciplined and lazy and afraid. cut the bullshit out and come back to the fold.

this echo within me, of something else, somewhere else, someone else. the ebb and flow of it, haunting, so close and yet so far. who was i, who am i, can i stand to be what i will become?
for years i’ve shed off one thing after another, stripped myself off in pieces dangled by skeletal fingertips, bare and cracked.
somewhere along the way i died and was reborn. and this new skin is hard to come by, treacherous to wear, but i have no other.

the passion of you, this bright smile, this wonder, you embody joy and innocence in a way that they write about in books.
you’ve turned two and it’s as if i have seen you for the first time. the last couple of years have been difficult for us as a family and i hope, with all my heart, that in the same way you forget your pacifier when we’ve secretly taken it away from you, these dark years eventually are forgotten as well.

where to begin, is always the first question. but the second?
where have you been. no, where have i been.
living, the little boy in the dark says to me, you’ve been living.
unhappy with yourself, racked with guilt, but living nonetheless.
he then adds, it’s not where to begin anymore.
it’s, where do you go now?

again and again, a return and a departure. the feeling is weak, so little to say, a loss of place, perhaps too preoccupied with being here, staying here. ach, nothing to worry about, only pining.