it goes without saying, it goes on saying, speaking, rattling inside my head:
this isn’t you, it never was you, it was you all along.
and my head spins and my stomach churns, this sick pit
rolling around and across
i could have been more, i could have done less damage
i could have remained alone and unwanted and free of guilt
i could have had nothing and that would have been everything
but instead, instead, instead:
a daughter who loves me, a son who needs me, a wife that forgives me
how terrible all this, to feel so undeserving, to feel so much
to dread the days, not day, but days that i will disappoint them
over and over
this is not, this has always been you
hanging by a thread, hanging by a noose
clutching at them to save me, pushing them away
to save them from what i should have been
Category Archives: words
from myself
i was dreaming, i once had a dream:
i was tall and strong and beautiful
i was nimble and sometimes very afraid.
but often times i was brave, braver than most.
i saw the world as an orchard and i had evberything that was promised to me.
above all else, i was a man of my word, a man of words.
but i was never any of those things.
i was craven and hostile, meek and angry.
i was a facade, everything was veneer.
the world was sour around me.
and now, now i no longer dream.
i am blemished and broken.
i am shattered and without respite.
the flowers that bloom around are under constant threat.
i want to protect from all things.
above all else, i want to protect them from myself.
slighty average
he says, you dont write anymore.
i says, yes.
he says, this is a great sacrifice.
i say, no. it isn’t. it never was.
he says, we’ve talked before how you’ve squandered your gifts.
and i say, what gifts? i never had any gifts. i was a slighty above average kid in fairly below average neighborhood.
and that’s what it all was. no mystique, no mysticism. i rambled about a few times, strung together a few words, ideas. nothing too complex, nothing just flat out simple. but in the end, that’s all i ever was. slighty above average.
are we all that terrible
are we all that terrible, like spines and webs, like halloween run amok. and i hold my daughter’s face and gaze the purest perfection, selfless and selfish, knowing and unknown, oblivious and obliterating. my son tangles my feet in barbed wire and sings in tap dance shoes belting out a melody as if he were in the rain or a musical. i reach for her and i strain, i miss her terribly. there she, right there but i am not close enough, i have gone too far for far too long. time, time is such a vicious and relentless thing.
and there are places
and there are places where there’s peace to be found and streams that tickle the under soles of our feet but i can’t bring us there. i choose mountains and gravel and steep cliffs that threaten to swallow us whole and you said, why all this when we can have more, and i sputtered, no this is all there is, this is everything, the maw and yawn of a harsh sun, the vast open plain where the cracks never end.
turned 38, just like that.
first end day as 38, a dollar short and a day late,got a dog and it looks great. ach, nonsense.
but yes, turning a corner, and finding something. a lab/terrier mix, three and half month old. from north shore animal league in and out in less than 2 hours.
have we become one of those type of people? friend says, “dogs are animals that are filthy and untrustworthy and can at a moment’s notice revert to instinct and rip your face off.”
oh my.
but something about the dog, already the dynamic. in me, in ioanna, in mikey, even mari.
perhaps we needed this.
turned 38, just like that.
father’s day 2010
after all these years and having become a father myself, you’d think it would get easier: that all i have to say to you would come out naturally and effortlessly. but it doesn’t, it gets choked up. how can i tell you, i mean really tell you, what you’ve meant and mean to me? how can i ever tell you about the things i hope you and i will do together in the future as father and son? how can i explain to you in details the things i imagine you’ll teach your grand children. these are all very difficult things to say, to write because there are never the right words to say everything that i really want to say. but i want to say this, at the very least: you’re my father and i am very proud of you. i am very lucky to have what i have in front of me, but i am extraordinarily fortunate to have you beside me.
after glow
lovely, this lovely, this lovely thigh against my own in the night. spent, passion spent, wet and weary. in a good way, like after a rigorous swim. like coming out into the light, coming home from the beach. yes, like that, you under my skin, in my breath, beside me, in the after glow. how wonderful.
shipmast
the spectacle of tentacles and heartbreak and loosened teeth. i saw this. i saw this upon the hull and wept. barnacles and mermaids and sirens and bloated dead men gouged eyes strewn across the reef. did you forget me? did you finally forget? or has the wound scabbed over into the semblance of something whole and sturdy and alive. the living, ah that’s always the rub isn’t it? between the storms and longing and flogging and the walls of the brig: the choice between living and weeping, carrying on and throwing up, swimming out into the sea or drowning to the shore.
mother’s day, always
my love, my love, my love
what have you given me, what is this life, these swirls, this joy, these children
who scamper about, drive me crazy, drive my heart
what is this life, this peace, this beauty
this tenderness i see when you hold them, scold them, kiss them
you brought these children into this world
you’ve brought this immeasurable light into our lives,
into my life, into the dark sorrow of my heart
where do you find all the love that you give?