When you laughed you took all the air from out of our lungs & for the first time I was glad to see you selfish.

I glued my legs together with black berry jam
The sweetest spread

The deepest intake
The shallowest chest cavity
Held nothing for me
Deuteronomy

Generally
I've lived a very stress free life.
I've never wanted for much,
I've always had the privilege of working
And the privilege of having a loving family.
If ever I've had anxiety,
It's always been for a good reason.
It's always been because
Of conscious bad decisions,
Or not doing something that I know I should be.
But the one thing that has consistently
Given me a sense of irrational fear
And anxiety,
Is the prospect of fatherhood.

I've been in multiple
Long term relationships
Where I've ended up avoiding *** altogether,
Just because I would get so worked up
At the prospect of having a baby.
I would weigh the pleasure of intimacy
Against that irrational sense of dread.
The scales would shift too,
In the beginning it's fairly balanced
And I would find joy in making love, but..
Over time they teeter towards
Wanting to avoid that irrational fear,
And that always costs me the relationship
Because I end up associating ***
With bad feelings.
I end up doing stupid little things.
Doing paranoid little things like
Tracking my girlfriend's periods,
Or fantasizing running away.
Romanticizing suicide.
It's so dramatic and big in my mind.

A lot of my concerns could be alleviated
By using basic family planning measures,
Like condoms or spermicidal ****,
Or insisting that my significant other
Start taking the pill.

But condoms ****,
And I don't feel right imposing
A prescription upon someone.

At the end of the day
I don't think that those family planning measures
Would address the true nature of the problem.
They're just a bandaid for my conscience.
Maybe I need to talk to someone,
Someone professional.
It's hard to admit weakness,
Hard to not be prideful.
But after all is said and done
I gotta figure something out.
I used to relish in the image
Of being a guy that wants to be alone.
But I don't think life is worth living
Without someone to share it with.

My new windows are transparent,
Free from smudge and tarnish.
I was clear-eyed gazing out,
Reflective peering in.
Two-sided.
Finger prints have been wiped free,
But around the edges there are still ridges,
Evidence of being opened and closed,
Unbroken in their sturdy frames.

But time is no friend to glass.
Winds assail it, birds bounce off at break-neck speed,
Dust accumulates, it becomes opaque.
Missiles assault its permanence,
Shattering the pane into foreboding shards, like a shell.

Some desperate glazes never get replaced,
They invite stone-throwers.
Then the building becomes derelict, untenable.

One stone can break a window,
Or fell a giant.

I was sound asleep. Work tomorrow

Tuesday, December 9, 1980. 6:30 A.M.

Alarm on. Out and into shower.
Shave. Can't hear radio.
Getting dressed, and in the background's playing, Imagine.
Then Wheels, Beautiful Boy, Help, I Should Have Known Better.
Why?
And the news sinks in. And I have to go teach Grade 6 English
and read Curious ******* George to four classes of Kindergartens and Grade ones.
And, I'm alone in my new house, in a small town called Aylmer (population 5,000).
My wife is away during the week at University, and I hate my job,
and he's decaying on some slab as I read to twenty-five five year olds. Some of these kids will get to know and love his work. So will their kids and grandkids. I know. Like Mozart.

Tuesday, December 9, 1980. 10:00 P.M.

Me, Johnny Walker, and the turntable going round and round, like his wheels.

I wish I could be
Anonymous to the world
Like I am here