Someone had to decide and so
unable to find another way,
without preparation, with a mix
of acetylene and wound, like someone
in the middle of a highway about
to get smashed, I ran.
I threw some things in a suitcase.
Without explaining. With a few words
to my sixyearold son, with a pat
on the head and some promises, and my
daughter not even there to say goodbye to.
Someone had to do it because I
told myself, she will never take
this blame, and it seemed the last
chance to save myself. And so I walked
away, most alone ever.
Wanting to go back a hundred times, to say
goodbye again, to explain for hours,
to crush them again in my arms, to
apologize again, to be at home a father
again even a husband, to ignore
everything and make believe and hope even
it might be.
But stubbornly I made myself go. I
made myself stay away. I went to the
new apartment and I slept there
trembling alone in a narrow bed
like an auto part in a dusty box, an old
carburetor in a warehouse forgotten
on the waterfront.
Then my son came to visit. Again and again.
It was never enough. Tears withheld that
might ruin our eyes forever. Love and regret
that could tear your arms off. One time he
hit me in the back of the head with a hardball
and I turned and saw the sad fire in his face.
And my daughter couldn't forgive - hurt,
untouchable like someone with a terrible sunburn.
Sometimes she didn't come for weeks.
It all went wrong, I told myself. And
now it's too late. I have nothing and my heart
is sick. Then one day an odd guy snuck into
the room. I'd known him in college, an oboe
player fond of psychology. Remember, he said,
it takes years, and fell asleep.
I can't really breathe, I told him. What
you've lived through is yours, he said.
Then slowly, as he snored, ache in bones,
middleofthenightsadness, subsided.
No longer thoughts of going back.
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