I don't feel like a dad. I feel like high school student who has to look after an egg for a week.

"Don't drop him"
"Lay him down gently"
"Don't swaddle him too tight"

The words of wisdom I was given have quickly been drowned out by his cries, to which I have no answer.

He was just fed
He has a fresh diaper
He has a clean clothes on
He wrapped in a cozy blanket
Why are you still crying?

This isn't fatherhood
There are no meaningful interactions
I am uncertain he can even see or hear me

But he needs me or rather mom needs me, because he needs her more

I didn't carry him for nine months
I didn't birth him into this world
Hers was the first touch he knew
I don't have *******
I feed him through plastic; cold and indifferent
I am not a dad yet.

I am in between who I was and who I going to be and it is agony
I am being torn in two and it doesn't even seem like it's the right time
Being asked to shelve myself for a life that doesn't need me yet feels harsh

This has to be price of admission
The cost of a lifetime of memories with my son

But the more I think about it, the more I realize I might have it easy

Mom was ****** into the necessary
Instantaneously the center of his existence

I get to wait until hard part is over
Until he can see me and at last make the connection; I am dad

It doesn't make the tearing of myself any easier but at least it shows  a glimpse

That limbo won't last forever;
That I will be a dad

You would think
That after biting my tongue
For so many years
That I enjoy the taste of blood

I don’t

I am beginning to fear it
The after taste is the worst part
It stains my words

What used to be soft whispers
That would roll off my tongue
Are now rolls of sandpaper
Scratching away

Until all that is left,
Are no edges
No sharp corners to cut me when I am brazen

My mouth is filling up with all the words I should have said
They spill out and form around my sneakers

So now wherever I walk
I am reminded of that silence

There is no sense of urgency anymore.  
Our problems are getting worse
And we keep burying our faces deeper and deeper into a digital stupor.  
Every time we look up, the world looks a little grayer
And our eyes have to strain a little harder to see the beauty that is left.

I reached into my pocket hoping to find my cellphone
So I can check the time for no reason
Because wearing a wrist watch seems pointless

I find my attention folded up on a 26 line wide rule piece of paper

“Pay rent, buy food, don’t die”

The 26 line wide rule paper is still white with blue lines
I just bought a new package for 98 cents

“Pay rent, buy food, don’t die”

Seems simple enough; like breathing
Except I realize that isn’t living
That isn’t enough

It is isn’t enough to have a roof when you feel like a stranger in your own home

It isn’t enough to be fed when all you eat are your own words

It isn’t enough to simply not die

I realize the list would have to extend for miles
Reach the horizon and then around the moon

But seeing as I haven’t touched the sky yet
Or danced with the moon

“Pay rent, buy food, don’t die”

Will have to do for now

Can time really be wasted?  If it can be wasted, it can be collected and traded.  
But I cannot touch it, or smell it, or see it or hear it.  
I can feel it in an intangible sort of way.

In the way the heart feels the absence of love; tearing with every beat
In the way our bones can feel the mileage; creaking with every step

I cannot feel it within the hour or the day or even the week.

I can only feel once it has passed and I am already weak.

I would retreat to my linen fortress whenever monsters lurked nearby
or when the skies opened up
releasing the unseen beast that rumbles in the night.

The rain poured down,
a turbulent and tumbling torrent

the sky shone through
and clambered up
around the afternoon