Unquiet

There is a need, a drive, for solitude,
but a fear is found within that quiet,
a wondering if I am enough,
enough for you, enough for me,
a good husband, a good father.

I have no answers, only fears which
feed that wonder, that doubt,
so perhaps what I need is unquiet,
that strange gray area which resides
between the noise I cannot drown
and the quiet found in the nothing
I love so much.

You cannot fathom the struggle,
the daily doubt which feeds me only
more doubt, and in that is where my
rage makes no effort to hide, for
it is within that rage I feel most safe,
most protected…

Some days I believe you.  But there
are so many days I do not, and not
because there is a lie to be found
within your words, but because I know
from experience that the lie might
appear as the truth – I have seen it.

It is the solitude which gives me the
truth I need, the foundation I require
for survival.  It is the noise, the “I love
yous”, the touches, that look in your
eyes which reminds me that life is so
much more than surviving.

Yet still I wake, doubtful you exist at all,
filled with both hope and dread.  Hope
you are there, hope you are not, hope
that perhaps I am not as crazy as I feel…
Dread you are a fractured manifestation
of my broken mind, dread you are laying
there when I roll over, dread that I am
everything I fear was created within me,
all that which I cannot escape…

I dread that I am exactly what I think I am.
And I cannot escape myself, no matter
how loud, no matter how quiet, for my
mind cannot allow peace – for peace died
within…

I could not be given life, I could only chase it.