the sanest moments, the one where i posses the most clarity are the one where i am utterly alone: there is no you, there are no children, there is no self hate. i am alone with the house, the darkness, the sounds of cicada, the air cool, the streets quiet. i do not look within because there is nothing to see, nothing there, no remorse, no sense of impending doom, no weight of disappointment. i am not a failure as a husband, not an incompetent father, not a recalcitrant son. i am not a sorry excuse for a human being. i am isolated and whole and at peace.

Son, we had your first birthday aprty today and you were adorable and shy but curious and playful. You are a wonder to me: hesitant and stubborn, open and observent: you are not afraid to look at anyone in the eyes, you hold their gaze. Will you remember to tell me what you were looking for? Will you tell me what you saw? Will it break my heart?

I have to admit there’s only a certain amount of stupidity I can withstand: it is all so trivial. Am I a product of this or have I out grown it? Ceaselessly, like waves pounding, eroding the shore. I am wasting away and no one can see. I look out my daughter, already lost, my son, a certain hope there that he will surpass me. I look at her and see all the wonder and grace a human being can be. I look at the mirror and all I see is sorrow and pain, the bearer and the cause: a lamb and the inevitable skewer.

every confession contains within itself denial: we were all pretending. in the night, nothing helps, every utterance digs you deeper, you are more lost than ever. she looks at you, searching for who you once were. you tell her, this is nothing new, this is who i’ve always been. she whispers, maybe you can ask your mother to stop working, she can help out with the kids…
i never should have told you anything. i never should’ve said anything at all.

she says to me,
last year we were like all our other friends, we were happy.
and i cannot stand it, i cannot stand the smell of me, i cannot stand the fact that i breathe, that i can hold the steering wheel and not spin out of control, all the self-hate isn’t enough to end it all.

The trick is to run past the rabbit hole, to keep moving, to keep alive. You are not alive when you are alone: you are only breathing. The presence of others, of talking, touching, holding, being needed, this is living. It’s a certain kind of box, a certain kind of definition. And although it eats at you, their needs, their words, their beckoning, it gives you shape, it keeps you moving, keeps you breathing past that rabbit hole, keeps you from falling in.

and it surges up and anger all rage all frustration the incompetence in me the vile and viciousness and gnashing of teeth i yell at the little one i snarl at her annoyed at the intervention annoyed with my loss of control and i barely have a grip on any of it and they all think i already where my heart on my sleeve when they don’t know how much of it i keep in check how much of it i swallow how much of it bounces around in my head but i never feel safe enough to let it all out i never feel safe enough

we are at the worst it has ever been in this country: home foreclosures, bank closings, credit crisis and nothing to shore up the underpinnings of the economy in sight except for the government. in a week, my son turns one. little over a month away we face a historic election where an african american is running against a ticket with a female vice presidential candidate, the first for republicans. my daughter and i rock out to chemical brothers while my son laughs in glee as i bop about. she cries in the car because i talk of how i desperately long for self-oblivion but cannot because of her and the children.
& the world goes round & the world spins & i cannot save them from any of it-
or me

the tensions pulling me apart, keeping me whole. i was told, often enough, i was a pain junkie, that i got off on it, the pitch of despair, the dark rebellion. i really need to rewrite all of this, but life isn’t like that, there is no rough draft, only unwieldy appendages, unyielding. it’s all quite alright if you circle the rim and not get caught up in the tide. it’s nonsense i know, but it comforts me like nothing else, not even the bottle or the bed or the fleeting oblivion promised by each.

but the alternative shatters me into rage and tears and remorse and an overwhelming sense that you were meant to be alone, that all the nightmares are going to come true, and there is a comfort in that, that you were ultimately right.
how absurd, how absolutely insane.