the blueshift journal

On this one day I asked my second grade class a question

about circles, using the planets 

 

as an example. This one kid, William, sits there, staring 

at my face as if he was eager to pounce. I stop my patrol

 

around the room and asking for his answer.

His quivering lip says nothing and I wait for him to speak

 

until he suddenly starts crying. When consoling him 

in between his sobs, he says he had to use the bathroom 

 

and couldn't hold it anymore and at that moment I realized

I had been watching him pee himself. The friend I'm telling

 

this story to laughs like a meteor shower crashing

into the moon before he says I'd have to eternally be a kid 

 

to be that clueless. If only it were that easy, if only my joy

wasn't defined by children I have yet to father.

 

My first love had her first child recently. I wanted to say 

more than congrats, to say the infant's eyes, the greatest 

 

gift I'd ever seen, to say I hope each morning is as good 

as grandma's breakfast on a Sunday. Her family, a growing 

 

flock of hallelujahs. Her family, an orbit I don't foresee 

breaking, a life between her and her husband spent

 

like a heavenly dance twirling in a room full of stars. I wanted 

to say all of this but I'm carrying too much 

 

of this lonely. I'm cratered 

with envy and embarrassment. Even Pluto,

 

divorced from it's solar system 

of a family has a moon still married to it.