love...and love.

there are moments when I ask myself...
would I do this all over again?

become the womb to carry our joined souls...
uniting us once and for all in this little child that now runs about me...

and the simplest answer to this question is:
in a heartbeat.

I knew in those moments when I prayed for his seed to plant..
I knew in those moments when I saw how lost his eyes would become...

his slipping sanity... and his fractured spirit... his inability to trust...
to see my reality...OUR reality.
almost broken. but not quite.

and I knew... as I cried and made bargains with the universe...
that all I could hope for was to save a piece of his soul...
and whatever good could still be salvaged from a hardened heart...

I knew.

so does this make me selfless or the ultimate in selfish?
I still do not know the answer to that... and it may be that I will never know.

but I watch the sparkle in my son's eyes... and I see the same possibilities
I once saw in my lover's face...

the very same tenderness... innocence... intelligence.
but lacking in the sadness... the desperation... and fear.

his kind and gentle heart, untarnished by the years of torture,
mind unblemished by chemical...
his face untouched and unbruised by a father's hand...

and I can't help but be grateful that in spite of all I knew...
I still chose to walk this path.

It's been nearly three years since I walked out your door for the last
time.. this time refusing to turn back...
closing my ears to your pleas
for my help.. for my love..

and I still have not come close to closing the place in my heart I keep for you.
It's been three years since I decided that you were not accepting of that love.

I still watch sometimes... from afar... at the madness taking your life...
singing those songs tonight I realized that I still sing them to you...
and that I still mourn for all that you could have been...

I see you some nights in my dreams.. a part of my family... a father to our son.
I always kiss you tenderly. hug you tight, and promise you that I will never let him down.

and then I awake... to the tears on my pillow... and a piece of you beside me..