it is ok to delete this post, to wipe it from memory. your daughter struggles with the attentions her newfound brother steals from her. she tosses and turns through the night knowing that something has fundamentally changed. my son gargles and razzes and shrieks like some mad miniature godzilla stuck to our hips as we saddle him around the house. a thick snow blanket over night swaddles our home but my daughter loses her mind at the sight of me stumbling awake. she tugs and pleads and never stops dancing from corner to corner. timidly, her eyes on the tv screen, my wife whispers, do you still like me? you cannot delete this, no matter how much it hurts. it will always radiate outward, it will always overwhelm you. it almost cost you all this.

there is a wound i’ve tended to for a very long time. full of pus, a sore that could not heal. and i poured vinegar and salt on it to keep it from healing. but the wound reached outward and split open the lips of people that i love and i found myself weeping as if i had been the victim when the truth was that i was the cause of it all. she reaches out to me in the dark because she needs me to believe. and in the dark i hold her to learn how to be someone to believe in.

months later he realized why he could never let go of the sensation that he had already met her. he had: in a different place, a different time. and she had destroyed him then, broke open the world and revealed it all for what it was. she had taught him the second lesson, the first being handed down to him from his father. he had become estranged to it all at that point, a violent trembling that had racked through his body and he had been so terribly cold that his teeth had chattered in the spring sun. the last lesson would be the one he taught to himself, the turning away without stopping.
all that has been written on you, will happen again, and by your very own hand.

i don’t know who the man is, where that particular voice comes from. i don’t know if he means me harm or does me good. but he comes, every so often, this hardened voice, this voice with no compromise or remorse. steady but thick like gravel. he knows all pain because he’s seen and lived through too much of it. i only know that he comes around from time to time to steady me, when i feel like a lost boy in search of his mother. he reminds me there are no mothers for men like us, there are no siblings, no family, no hope. he reminds me that ultimately everything is a choice, our loves, our friends, our words, and the choice is solely mine. then he goes, disappears into the ether, into the dark part of my mind where all the demons need tending. he disappears back into the woodwork and i move on.

and in my sleep i try to toss and turn but my daughter claws onto me desperately and i fall back into exhaustion and i want to be that edge of warmth that gives her comfort and i want her to be the anchor that keeps me steady the dream that denies all the monster that i’ve become

the beautiful thing about children is they simply cannot fake it.

there just isn’t enough to keep up, for the up keep, daughters breaking games for attention, newborn sons mewling for their bottle and the day goes by just like that, and you have to put this desire away and that yearning away and that bit of frustration that would normally have you put your fist through a wall you set aside to show your daughter this is how you hold a slice of pizza to eat it like a grown up and you tickle your son while his mother makes him a bottle and you feed your wife while she feeds your son because her back is broken and you push the rest of the day further back into the night until you can finally get here and jot down the remnants and even so even so despite it all it takes your mind off everything else it takes you away you from yourself you find some peace in the midst of all this noise.

the beast within me is never asleep, it does not know slumber. it always only muzzled and chained, it growls through the night. it makes me restless and angry without cause. it drips hungry saliva as it paces around. it is mangy and unkempt, its teeth yellowed but still sharp, gnarled claws scratch the floor. it sniffs around for escape, it perks its ears for any sign of exhaustion. it is beautiful and desperate. relentless and cunning. it is all the things I keep myself from being.