That Good

One.

Your eyes will lose the words on the page. The words will try to climb the empty well of your mind. Your mind will send rivers of resistance. Your heart will remind the words that they must swim despite the current and the climb.

Two.

You understand that your children will never know the world you wanted for them. You begin to grieve yesterday, a thousand yesterdays. It is selfish. You grieve the version of you that could not imagine today.

Three.

You text a friend. Check a news outlet. Make sure not to see what the words said. He had his hands up. She wasn’t mad. Blue bunny ears on the boy who is the same size as your son. You text another friend. Check another news outlet. Tell yourself to breathe, to walk, to drink water.

Four.

You do not obey. You do not breathe. You do not walk. Spasms play your spine like a xylophone. You try to count your senses: 5 colors. 4 sounds. 3 things you can touch.

Five.

You remember how skin hungers for what it can’t touch. How absence grows a texture.

You think of all the people without their people. You think of any way to teach your children to be good. But- it is selfish - not so good that one day you will hunger for them too.

Six.

Your heart is swimming upstream. You forget how to exhale. You text a friend.

Seven.

There is no future self to tell you what is to come. Only the you who has now lived this and will again. Who can and must again. Go grieve then. Text your friends. Growl with hunger pangs. Build your heart a boat. Teach the children to be that good.