warm days chilling into the night. she is afraid of me when she is in pain. a splinter in her toe, my mad grip on her foot with tweezers to dig it out. i let her go, she was sobbing, shocked, i broke some sort of trust with her. you say i am imaging things, but today, she was running, joyfully, trotting to our car. i had our son in one arm, i was watching her little feet dance forward along the pavement, admiring. she reached our car, she stopped but for some reason then stumbled. landed on her face, her hand. i ran to her, tried to help her up one armed, baby still in my other grip. she was sobbing hard, screaming in pain. i needed to see the damage, if there was any, my little girl. and i looked and looked but she was reluctant, afraid. small scrape on her nose, another above her lip, slight swelling off center. but she so afraid, afraid of what i would do next to fix it. and all i could do was hold her and promise her that she would be alirght. that i wouldn’t do anything to make it worse. i wouldn’t do anything at all.

my little one, i dreamt you. i loved your mother and you came to me in a dream. i saw you and heard your laughter. i saw you in a dream and suddenly you were here.
and you are everything i had imagined, you are everything i had hoped for. i dreamt you and you became real. i dreamt you and you came to me. you came to me and i became real too.

the world moves like this, small little steps of intense focus and blip it is gone. it comes much easier than this. the man sits across from me and says delightedly, strippers come to me from miles abound. i note the intonation and refile through useless notes that turn me blind. my friend says, this is all very surreal and i reply, i know, we’re going to become a different class of people aren’t we? and in a matter of hours my three year old turns four and already she is unknown me, a mysterious animal with much charm and beauty and great potential for violence. these are exciting times, i tell my lover, i’m quite nervous. and she says, it’s all like a dream come true.

i sputter about, half mad, half exhausted, a pinwheel run amok. between desire and disgust, i look in the mirror and finally recognize myself, i truly see myself. grizzly, barbaric, poetic soul in the trappings of a beast. my skin is is my own. there is no redemption, only the constant yearning for it, only the constant attempt. try again. fail again. try harder, fail harder.