This many years and you’d think I could do something other than press
myself up against tomorrow with my eyes closed. I never used to be this way:
laughing as I stare my problems in the face, all I’ll figure it out later. But

then again, no one ever said this would happen. I was a kid
on a kickball field, celebrating a homerun, yelling into the woods, fists raised
above my head & now, now I’m pressing my eyelids together, peaking

just a bit at what morning might bring. When I go downstairs, I am able
to watch my son eat strawberries, watch as they take up the entirety of his small hand
like little, red grenades. I am able to watch my older son, the look of terror

on his face, as he slowly grasps what our short future might hold. I’ve made a habit
of lying to them lately: It will be okay, I say, maybe more for myself than him. He cries
into the couch pillows. I slide into the kitchen and brew coffee, feed the dog, take my
morning pills. Pain doesn’t hurt until it does. Things aren’t bad until they are.