I will never
accept being cared for, let alone love
As a valid input
until my carcass is reborn
The body in which
we betrothed was sluiced
In frayed pork
defiled basted for blood sausage
I view askew from
the perimeter of sentiments
Adjacent like a
hypotenuse to the angles
Of a wife, a
husband and a daughter
Asunder bombing
theorems into pick-up-sticks
Dumped out a can
I remember playing with
On the floor at
my grandmother’s house
She always
requested ice cream and
My grandfather
always went to the store and got it for her
There was an
arrangement there, a balance
A nuance to the
difference between favors, appreciation and slavery
The geometry is
defunct in unilateral termination of mathematics
Of a corner of
the triangle reversing to open up lanes to another highway
Towards new
construction, old vehicles, pick-up trucks and hay bales
Rotary club
meetings and gender terminology to captain industry
The old blindness
imitates a rodent scurrying in your father’s house
Gorging on Gouda
to insulate from the politics of rum and daiquiri shop cigarettes
Blasphemous to
admit to myself that a heinous compartment
Misses you,
misses the ease stitched into the fabrics of bed sheets
The routine of
dinner or escaping hurricanes like merry escapades of youth
Holding to the
cape of heroes reflecting yellow sun like the radiant barrier
I requested to
install in all five thousand square feet of that roof we built
To save on energy
costs over a lifetime of ownership
Together with the
porch, the sun could never mug our home with its punches
Always
refraction, a touch away from a touch
Four years later,
you there with him, me here a mile away in the same town
I cannot look at;
I cannot grow in; I am a plant with shuddered roots incapable
Of descending
into this soil as if cypress in a desert or cacti in a moor
I am dying alive;
I see this modest suburb cul-de-sac wanting it to feel akin
Yet no; all it is,
is down the road from that porch, and that garage that was as big as a house;
that double-slab, the pool in your parent’s backyard to a driveway
Of car seat
clicks and stow-away scenes forever etched like sandpaper tissue paper
To wipe tears
from ducts for eyes without lids blinking incessantly, yet
Appearing to the
world as those of a dead man, the cauldrons of my soul
Gargle for an
apology that will never bubble, yet still a speck of me is thirsty
Parched
and when I think of that word I am embraced by the audacity
Of your
father’s alcoholism, of his jokes about light being the color, not the amount
of rum in his cocktail at every restaurant, gathering or outing our hybrid
family ever attended; how our daughter now uses that word parched and why;
How your
clan must joke about it; laugh as if it is some ecclesiastical performance of
vernacular befitting Webster; that the group is someone that bit more academic,
rather than like children playing hide and seek, avoiding the confrontation of
calling thirst the cravings of an addict or scratching the itch to placate the
demands of the centrifuge of family conflict; that there will be none as long
as the drink is in hand and what is, will be let be and what is will be
embraced as profound rather than desperate or sad
Yet I am
timid of wanting to stay in proximity to all of that in this basket landing pad
after the past four years of shrapnel and dust; to venture onward now seems
like a drain of so much energy; of electrifying the disposal and grinding so
much ease in knowns, of knowing nothing, yet feeling like this is living,
knowing it is now preferring the numb over the excruciating battle to actually
participate where another may one day crack
The levee
of where I wallow and shield like a coat rack of parka’s in New Orleans, that
it will never be that cold, no matter the day or hour or mention of weather
anomaly, some plants can survive because that temperature will never be
achieved at such longitude and latitude on the planet, absent man fucking with
the ice caps,
I
confront that I may never be cured inside; this detestable sensation to second
guess my own valuation of the operations of love and trust are forever
mismanaged to a state of disrepair, dysfunction and disillusionment. I want to overcome this urge to be alone, the
hollow holy of the cocoon, the glow worm of my television and empty other side
of the bed, knowing four years and I still cannot settle in the middle or the
left hand side, only the same as if a decade of marriage could redirect the
placement by will alone
I see
women as offering more detriment than benefit; the risks outweigh the gains in
every respect the effort expelled will be repaid in a charge card for
tolerating my presence I will receive a latent invoice; maybe not within the
first year or two or three, but at some interval the letter will come in the
mail from a lawyer informing me of the interest owed compounded monthly in the
sight of my children become a picture I have to remind myself of because I am
no longer permitted to see them daily
This
comparison and mathematics is an unbearable wolf clenched to any approach that
seems in the smallest bit reasonable affording me the luxury of solitude to
avoid all such economics for a management plan confined to masturbation,
Sundays to watch football, and direct decision making authority of what is left
of my bank account; trust is not an issue it does not exist
I am
constantly putting myself on trial
As if my
nine and a half month wait for court
To have a
chance to raise our daughter is unending
A
repetitive sitcom episode, re-run
Inside
the justification that I am an honest man
Good, a
satisfactory parent, perpetually
Drenched
in the oil spill of your departure
Plug
nothing
I planted
a butterfly garden with our daughter
We
journey our Adventure Time, we discuss
The
feelings like an age-appropriate audience Oprah show
Never be
enough, Skype in the camera frame
Refuse to
view, repartee over home work
On who
she plays with at recess, knowing her insecurities
Knowing her
strengths, this contagion may never be contained
See a
friend stand for me
I will
give what I have from everything
Lost
employment, change careers,
Here’s a
hand, get the hand up out there
Why I do
it; question myself
Who am I
saving; selfish bastard
Analytical
second guess hell
Black
hole of devil tongues;
Never
normal, never done
Cancer
cells of you still lurking in me
Cut the
whole fucking organ out,
Yet still
it bleeds,
No clue
how to love anyone again
Gut this
mutant tangential concern
That will
permit no more than friends
Trust,
motivations, risks, litigation
Procreation,
confrontations, numb the morphine
Coat the
tongue
Unsure
because I kind of like this
Taste the
death, toe-tap lightning
Stay
alive for digesting regret
All the
women look the same, like vomit
You have
infected the totality, me, them, the Earth
The
nausea is ubiquitous
I don’t
want to be happy; I want a reason to be happy
There is
no pill , Glix 13
You
ruined what it means to me to be a father, to be a husband
You bastardized
my greatest joys
I used to
look forward to interactions, the outside world
All
replacements are moot, virulent reminders of possibility rotting
Before my
eyes as if any portion of possibility were even possible
Cascade
into a ravine of obliteration, toss the totality into an event horizon
That
expectation and resignation have entwined into a massive nothingness
The urge
to call, to ask, to surface is claustrophobic
The
ceiling, the lawns, the street corners invade
Like
worshipers of a foreign religion seeking not to convert me
But to
make me witness their revelry, burning at the stake is preferable
To
absorbing the waves of social like a red tide
Maybe one
day I could confront, outside the battlement
I could
aspire and live as a husband, as a father again
In my new
family, still guiding our daughter but affixed anew
Letting
go and letting in, slowly possible; I want it so
So I will
do my best to make it be; in time.
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