to find rest, raining, pouring, wind whip. i shiver through my anger, little patience, even less. maniacal need surpassed, a grinding peace, she’s always deserved much more, much better. awake in twilight, the first to face the dawn, i was meant to be like this. sudden and aware, before anyone else.

ravaged and hung sideways: I feel the spleen. drenched in over coats over stepping bounds like mad fathers who persist to abduct their children while screaming epithets. we drink and stumble and laugh a laughter from deep in our bellies because the day has its shortcomings and we could not abandon it. he says to me, the violence never ends, only our bodies ability to withstand it.

from barren limbs nubile buds streching into something beautiful. she inists on watering the weeds and with careful chubby feet tips the spout sideways. my love reminds me to be good to her. time heals nothing; all it does is encourage forgetting. and my son witless and joyful, gnaws on anything he can get his infant hands on.

while blowing on dandelions my daughter wishes for a great dad. spending the whole day with me leaves my son smileless and untrusting. i sit outside catching cigarettes the way fish rip into a line: manically and without regard for myself. i have failed, i am failing.

the music of calamity, long droning tones with sharp pitches like the squeal of my son or the shriek of laughter from my daughter. she settles me into place, holds me to her chest, whispers, you’ll get through this, you’ll get through anything. precious soul. how have I not broken you by now?

the most wonderful day wife daughter son laughter and ease away from keyboard and poker away from the night for once a peace of mind a harmony a leaving an arrival an end a beginning a rest without fists arms wrapped around them them arms wrapped around me

on the way back from a day long series of pit stops and family visits, our daughter from the back seat sighed and declared, “it’s to hard to be a person.”

the malaise sets in over faith and in consequence. how to break her? anger at a pitch over nothing at all. but there is something more with this, our lack of moral compass. do we need a practice to point us in the right direction? i think so, i’ve forgotten what faith feels like. first christmas, now easter. round and round it goes, adrift.

it is difficult to revell in tour humanity when you are frail and weak and fractured. it is difficult to breathe, to not punish yourself for every transgression. these days she sees my humility as a betrayal of who I once was. I tell her, to be otherwise would be a further betrayal to her.

this whiplash of living leaves scars on the membrane. I dance, I bleed, my limbs fling outward smashing every face I see but my own: the most deserving.