Sometimes I look around me and I suddenly wake up. I see the faces of my friends, notice how they look, really hear the voice of my father, look around and suddenly I know this is here. I shudder and shake and start to cry and immediately I run away from it. I get scared. A grown man hiding in the corner. It used to be a little boy but now I see him, me, sitting there. I watch myself go. Does that make sense? I wish I could go back in time. I wish I could see that boy, put my arms around him and make it all better, wipe away with my older, more creviced hands the pain and the fear in his face. Maybe then the man that I know will let go of his grip, let go of his solid, knuckle grip of that corner. Behind my eyes I watch this Super 8 movie of my childhood. I turn away. Why this, why that?

I sometimes exist as this child man waving to the other person who shares some of this, my sister, across the expanse of our lives we hold each other and yet are so far away even when we are sometimes a few feet apart.

Now, here now, I hold tiny hands in mine and watch the side of his face, watch a girl get more awkward and grow into the shoes she needs to wear and see her carry her own set of baggage. She and I, well, I give her a hard time, I am too hard on her maybe. I try to the lesson and there's no poetry in it, no soul, no love. What is it they say, experience is a hard teacher, it gives the test first and the lesson afterward. Step back, man, I keep saying to myself, step back.

That little boy. The boy I was and in many ways am. You were a brat, an idiot, a lovely kid, a boy who stole an engagement ring from his mom's drawer and gave it to his 1st grade teacher, kissed girls behind the bush when he was five, the boy who watched and watched the other, the harder moments.

Sometimes past all of it, you know, it, it comes down to one simple thing, waking up.