When will i ever be happy again? When will I ever be present? When will I feel something other than remorse, regret, sorrow and numbness? It is not stupidly enough a matter of changing scenery: things would only get worse without some sort of stability, some sort of structure. But I feel as if I am pretending and increasingly find it difficult to live with myself: I am hurting everyone, I am cold and broken. I do not want to die but I also do not want to continually put the people that love me in this predicament. The therapist had said to me just as I was leaving: it is a terrible thing to feel like you’re second rate; it most suck some of the pleasure out of your life if not all of it.
When will I be free of myself?

So walking into the room we get the formalities out of the way: insurance papers and disclaimers, hipaa acknowledgements and privacy statements. He’s old and patient, stereotype, textbook shrink. But I’m comforted by his age: he’s lived, he’s seen it all.
He asks me: have you had previous treatment, have been hospitalized? No, only for stitches. I wonder if he’s noticed the scars on my arm. I tell him about the in school therapist at john jay. He wonders aloud where’s he heard john jay from before.
I clarify: john jay college of criminal justice. He asks me if I wanted to go into law enforcement and I reply how I originally wanted to be a cop, then a federal law enforcement officer but how a professor changed my mind. I point out how I have a degree in forensic psychology. He follows up with if I was familiar with behavioral sciences and I was.
He then asks me if I had any questions and I’m a blank at first. I think of what I was supposed to ask from what i read online: what’s your approach? Do you ask a lot of questions or just let the patient do all the talking? He responds (correctly) that it depends on the person: one patient he has comes in, talks about his issues, arrives at a conclusion and leaves. “I am more of a spectator to his process.” Another comes in and she’s all over the place and he presses her.
Next question: under what conditions would you refuse to see a patient? He explains that there some areas that are not within his expertise. That addiction isn’t something he would take on. And sometimes during couples therapy he’s had patients put him in the middle and issues on confidentiality might arise and he would recommend another therapist for one of the partners. He also gave an instance where the man had an order of protection against the woman and she had an order of protection against the man and yet both went home to sleep in the same bed.
And during this time I can’t help but notice that instead of a coffee table, he’s got this nice looking leather office chair with wooden arms sitting atop of a plastic sheet right in the middle of the room. So I ask, what’s with the chair? Is it for you or the patient. And his response was, “Well, the chair doesn’t work and I ask people not to sit in it. That’s it.”

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