my little one, first born, my young lady, my dream child: you’ve turned six in the midst of the chaos of your brother’s lost teeth. i am so sorry my love that it has been so horrible. if i could take it all, i would. you are the shine in my eyes, you are the curve of my smile, the gentle pause between each beat of my heart. i hold you and it is as if i am renewed, i am reborn, i am here, at last. you bring me down to earth little one, you bring life to this old weary ghost.

he said i live in a hurricane of language and because of that i will always be trauma, i will always remember it in new and horrific ways, there will always be poetry in my despair, i will haunt and be haunted.
and i replied, don’t touch my children, leave them be. take from me, take your pound of fucking flesh from me.

is this what we should do, on the days when we’re together and she can be with the children? should i abscond and disappear into this, this difficult thing that is so very frightful and alluring and impossible? ah the madness of it, to want so desperately but not be able to, what impotence!

and i cant even reach out to your children, so many years have gone by, grown so far from your son, never really close to your daughter. i always felt the odd one out, always thought i saw a slight shift in their gaze when i opened my mouth and spoke to them truly, as i was, as i had thought they knew me to be, unencumbered. but at your wake and at your funeral i realized: we are never unencumbered, we are always uncomfortable and bothered and hindered, we are never quite right in our own skins.
your son, in fragments, told me of feeling your presence in a room so strongly that it frightened him out of his wits. he told me, watching the casket being closed was so difficult because it was truly the last time he would ever see you. out of nowhere between the plates of served food afterward, he whispered, how memories of you came and went in his mind, how he couldn’t grasp any one of them tightly enough to keep in focus.
all this in the face of your death, all this lost in a day of stoic grieving and formality. i never quite know what to make of these things, i never quite know what to make of myself, i never quite know how to be to fix it, any of it: his life, your death, my sense of obligation and detachment, or the odd place where it all sits awkwardly waiting to be resolved.

i am still broken. no i’ve finally broken myself. i’ve shattered myself. i’m ruined amongst the pieces of who i used to be and i’m trying to fit the pieces together. i am trying to make sense of myself. i am trying to be.
when my daughter hurt herself, i told her i had becomevery scared. she said that i didnt sound very scared. and how can i tell her? how can i tell her that it’s all despair and madness and cacophony? how do i tell her that i’m coping.
what an ugly fucking word. what a joke i’ve become.

there are things i let go of everyday. trivial things. monumental things. i let go. my uncle, onset of cancer. my father, mystery stomach pains. family i’ve estranged myself from for decades at this point.
and then there are things i cannot. things i should know better and let go off, but i won’t. i can’t. call it pride, call it what it is: stupidity, but mine. mine.

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.