one place ineptitude comes up a lot
is the presumed judgment
for my skill level at parenting

I definitely don't feel
like I fit in
there

I'm sure some of this is imagined
but some of it is definitely because
I still struggle with basic things
like remembering
and also I am just
different

it's weird how some letters
etch into my brain permanently
but then I can't remember to do things
like buy a shower curtain liner
after I threw away the moldy one -
it took me five weeks to finally
remember to put it on the list
on that device that's always in hand
and think to look at it at the store
and not after I get home
perpetually wetting
my bathroom floor

shopping is hard a lot
sometimes we have fun
and it doesn't seem stressful
but other times it's this covert panicked
mad dash to get what's required
and I'm always forgetting things like
toilet paper

it's really weird
what survival mode does to brains

I look at these aliens
who make me feel like they are
professional parents from a foreign land
where every item in their pantry is stored
in cute matching air-tight canisters
with custom labels and dates
and birds fly in the window to sing
while they fold their laundry
at dutiful intervals

I just feel like
a child with a child
in parenting world
even though I know
I'm getting better

when I first came back
I would zone out
from everyone
randomly cry

it was nice
to not have to explain -
my family mostly assumed
it was me detoxing from
that wretched hellship
and subsequent mechanisms
of control he was keeping up
(thank god that really seems to be
stopping, so good I almost don't even
want to get my hopes up, but he seems
to be seeing and letting go of all the ****
he was doing even six months ago...
I hope and pray losing me and the life
he could have had with his son
haunts him enough to break through
his denial and rage and heal enough
to be a decent human being for my kid)

but I wasn't crying over him
he brings me to anger with a speed
and skill level I have never before
and hope to never see again
so, there was rage for him
but those tears
were not his

they were for the shattered hope
of something loving, real,
waiting
for me

with open arms
primed with pacts and promises
that I thought meant

everything

but things change -
maybe not the love or connection
but the faith that good things
are coming

I get that
and see how my inability to speak
may have been a push that sent
this most precious thing that was
fighting, really fighting for me to see
straight into another's arms
because theirs went numb
waiting to for me to jump
while I repelled down the side in silence
petrified of all I ever wanted

because my lips were busy
shaking like my fingers
that forgot how to
hold things

ineptineptinept
not worthy
not good
enough
for him

nor was the stupid poetry
I kept trying to make perfect
because that's what I thought
he deserved

when my anything
would have been good
just a few words, like:
I did it
I'm a mess
I need you more than anything,
but right now I
just. can't.
read or speak
free

it's terrible how horribly effective
false advertising is when it's repeated
over and over and over, you know -
take ******, maniacal diabolical murderous despot that he was, was also a true evil genius of advertising -
you make the lie big, simple,
keep repeating it, and eventually,
they believe it

even when you know
it's all ******* and it's bad for ya,
it still gets in, writing on your psyche
and part of you believes somewhere
underneath the logical know
and defeated flippant eye-rolls
that maybe you are
a stupid ******* ****
a ***** *****
fat and old and ugly
that no one else would ever
want you

and that you
- deserved -
every last terrible thing
inflicted upon you in venom