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.

how romantic to cleave yourself out of a life. how utterly selfish and cruel. I cannot rewind or undo or forge forward. but i am suffering, they are suffering. i cannot reach out to her. i can barely reach them. i do not want to be reached. i am failing at this. i am a failure. i have failed you all.

i have built this tremendous thing, it is awe inspiring, it takes up all this room. more importantly, lives depend on it. so many lives wrapped and entwined. i study the foundation. she says to me, you’ll have ruined my life. i take a step back but do not know how to admire it any longer. it presses on me. but i do not know if the fault is with my sight, the time of day i’ve decided to regard it, or the structure as a whole. what i do know is that i can never rebuild such a thing again: it’s taken me far too long.

always in this liminal fucking state yearning for the american dream and an alternative to property ownership, career instability and 401k’s shoved down the back of the throat. i can’t help but stare. i am staring and do not know how to shift my gaze onto some epiphany and resolution to all of this. i never wanted this for myself, for my wife, for my children. how did this happen? how was i convinced? why was i convinced? why have i become unconvinced? where is the lack?
he says to me, why boy, isn’t it obvious? nothing wrong with it or the rest.
you are the lack, you are the despair.

no one knows everything. compartments where we lock things up but cannot forget. cannot forgive. it’s all a stutter. i ghost from room to room. she tells me how her aunts told her to keep an eye on me, to keep me happy. what the fuck do they see. what the fuck do they think i am. brutal monster, i’ve forgotten how to read to my child. device failure. human failure. stain. swath of sweat across the chest, and the stench. this is what i am. not what i’ve become, this is what i’ve always been. i’m only normal in the sun, where the light blinds everyone.