labor of

Coronavirus! on the mind. Dragging lids and feet. Collectively still in the stage of denial, in snorting at memes about self-quarantine, the travails of social distancing, neverminding that in weeks these jokes will burn bad. So cavalier about so much death. I settle myself saying this is how our culture deals. Flip through the fear.

It’s been a year since I’ve posted here. Did I tell you I have a new name? Did you know I was staked in the desert, the wind screamed my face off, I fell off the edge of the planet, I became Mars.

I have mentally written and revised and backspaced my way out of tens of thousands of words. Most of them hurt. They hurt so bad. On top of that, last summer (last summer!!) my laptop died and with it, seven years of my reflected life. My own damn fault for not having a backup. I still haven’t recovered from the unrecoverable, numb and dumb all these months later.

Madsad it’s gone. Madsad let’s be real, it wasn’t that much — I don’t write anymore. Madsad I won’t confront that in many ways, I feel fine, wondering if I’m faking it. Made my bed and sleeping in it. What does any of it meeeeean. What am I trying to seem.

One day I will write those letters to my children. Maybe in a decade, when he’s too young to find it, when it can age and I can claim ever greater distance when I show him my face and break his heart.

Half this post is voice-to-text on my phone, butt on the couch with this boy on my lap, passed out post-feed, his warm little body curled against my bare belly, my tank tugged up for nursing.

In December he came out a comma,

…and I am still building this boy with my body, wringing out reluctant ounces all hours of what’s a day and night?

I love him so goddamn much. My whole swole heart, all of my biology.

My son! My moon and stars.
I made a son and a father.

I hold them in my arms and cry.

I want to write more, believe me. But any moment he will wake and, for now, I can soothe.