Fight

My fleeting desires for others does not take away this love I have for my boy. This weighted thing, this catch in my chest when I see him wandering by in search of a pen.

Sometimes we fight and I am angry and I shout, or rage quietly. Sometimes the acid of my anger burns off the memory of care and support and leaves me with the bones of this long term thing, but they are solid bones. Even stripped of flesh I carry them carefully. We snap and snarl at each other but I curl my fist around this thing we have built together and it is a weapon against separation.

"All right," I tell you "If we continue to yell then one of us will want to walk out and go sleep somewhere else tonight, or it will be the couch and then we will regret it in the morning, particularly at 7 when the tradesmen come and stomp in their blundstones all over our fragile love that has weathered a night apart"

So, like the adult thing that this is, we repair it grudgingly. It is worn out in places, it is a threadbare thing if you hold it to the light, but the bones are thick and firm and heavy and I suspect we will survive all of this together.