the point is can you come up with anything in an hour, a half hour, in a minute? Can you come up with something worth writing, saying, in so much time. Can you come up with anything? Can you come up for air? Are you drowning? Can you come up for air?
I breathe and you leave. Our daughter turns in the night between us, careful, careful, each of us on edge, furthest away from each other with her between us. She turns in the night, one side to the next, arms out stretched, whisper fingers raking the air. Looking, grasping in the dark. Are you there mommy? Are you there daddy? She tosses and turns, scratch, scratch a back here, scratch, lightly, lightly, a face there. She tosses and turns, fitfully, throwing fits from side to side, restless and I cannot sleep any longer on this edge.
Scratch scratch. Scratch scratch. I’d like to be done with this. Is this all there is? It’s all seemed very dark, one long dark night punctuated with short bitter streaks of daylight. One year done, another four to go. I miss the sun. I miss you. The disconnect is profound and sharp in relief that I cannot find any relief any where.

this come suddenly am I mourning in the dark
to hear you, here, over and over, you here you
suddenly dark I am hearing this, this over here
over hearing one breath too many, too winded
wind along windows, over and over, pushing the frames
and I have to stop, I can no longer be this, over and over
do you hear me, no longer this here in the dark
suddenly one breath too many
I’ve forgotten something and I don’t know quite what it is, I know it’s missing been missing for some time and although I cannot trace the beginnings of it I am sure it’s been growing for some time this forgetting, this leaving of something, some things, some thing vital, my vitals behind, along the floor, further back into the dark and I cannot see it despite the daughter I have brought in to this world, despite the woman who must love me desperately and patiently I cannot see it for them, to make sense of this, of what I am becoming.
I have always feared the night and the passage of time. I sat huddled against my window sill overlooking the highway on nights just like this, hot still humid the sounds of cars jetting across the on ramp and I listened to Pink Floyd and classic rock that spoke to me and sometime I would even make tapes and I cringe at the things I might have said. And sometimes I cried for the child I had been but somehow I remember that being mostly during the winter, where there was no air and only cold frozen. And the nights then were incredibly longer than they are now and there were such interesting things on TV: I have and will always have a love affair with the television, from Hawaii Five-Oh to Columbo to Kolchack the Night Stalker and the Prisoner. Nowadays there isn’t much late night watching that interests me; I don’t know if it’s me or the times.

this strange darkness in life…
The truth is there isn’t any more darkness in my life: it is buoyant, light, strong.
I have a wife, I have a child, I have what seems to be career more so than a job. Outside of purchasing a home, it cannot really get better than this. But buying a home brings up a certain fears about job security and financial comfort, i.e. if I lost my job, could we keep the house afloat on Mari’s salary and if so, more than likely so, then for how long? The idea of unemployment, still sore in my memory from 2001, is too scary, too visceral and feels far too likely.
Still however I am afraid of growing up and it’s happening faster: first child has already arrived and then the next and who knows maybe another, and at some point I will have to begin to look older at the very least, my youth has to start to abandon me. All I see right now is a new crop of grays, but still slight. My friend Mike has lost his hair and shaves his head now, as does Pete the Foot and even Watersport Pete show signs of wear around his skull. Still thick head full of hair, no deep lines embedding themselves, no hardening or leathering of the skin. The weight sure but that’s more of a sign of excess than age.
I haven’t been remembering my dreams of late: with a job like this I wrestle myself into and out of sleep, there is little to remember in the exhaustion. And I’ve started hitting the gym again, although with a different purpose in mind. More set on losing pounds than pressing weight. Running now for the last two weeks six days a week, 2 plus miles at a time. I work with free weights three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Fridays while running around the nearby park the other days. The progress I’m making surprises me and encourages me. I’m trying, trying to build the health I’ve taken away through over eating and smoking.
And the writing, save for a few ghost sentences here and there, the segment of an idea, the piece of something not broken exactly, but definitely not a piece of something larger, is entirely gone. I don’t know if it’s a question of discipline but I can’t seem to break through or go on in any sort of prolonged manner. There’s a spark or two, but then that’s it, nothing sustaining or maybe sustainable? Not a good idea in any of them. Or like I wrote somewhere else, “I get bored” and lose interest.
But what if the problem is not the idea, or finding a fresh idea, but rather, the impatience in taking the time to build something better than a gimmick?

1. I need to find a way to make everything normal again. I’ve been looking at my life and all I see is emptiness. Yes, we’ve had a child and she is the most amazing and fulfilling thing I have ever seen, but everything else about myself seems hollow and empty. Downloading movies, an insatiable need for ripping dvd’s (so disciplined I am, as if it was a business), endless and recording and encoding of movies… I don’t know, there’s a hole and I’m in it and I don’t know which way is up.
2. She’s gotten into the habit now, after an angry spell where she’s been jolted suddenly or picked up when she didn’t want to be, that as she settles down a type of complaining sing song language comes out of her. And at first she complained off to the side, as if talking to an imaginary friend, but more recently she talks to us directly, letting us know that we upset her greatly and how she felt about it and even how it frightens her still. It’s not total nonsense or the aftershock blubber of a crying fit; there’s a cadence, specific stops and starts and the movement of a mouth on the verge of articulating language.
And we laugh and laugh with a glee that must be maddening to her: This is serious business you two, are you two making fun of me or what?
3. Things between us worsen then strengthen then worsen again. I think my condition is worsening and as I am getting older, while the edge of sorrow has dulled, I feel as if the schizo-ness she mentioned in recent days is the indication of a greater breakdown. I feel as if I’ve been decomposing for a while now and I really don’t know how to light the darkness that is my heart these days. I am so frayed and terrifying alone and I wish I could have been a better man, a better writer and not live like this in an apartment above my parent’s home and not work nights like some addict and never see her for hours at a time. I wish it had all been different and pushed myself off course of this career track instead of being afraid of failure, of this I am certain I would have failed as a professor. I would never have gotten even past the dissertation part, I did not have the conviction for it.
We should have left Albany first chance we got, but I was greedy for you and our time together and weak for not going further on my own, so delusioned to take Michael Blitz’ foot steps.
4. Ah, such as it is, leave it be, leave it be.