My father tolerates me.
I was a bright child and
easy to ignore.
I played alone many times.
I was tolerated the way a pandemic is tolerated.
It becomes a new normal,
for better or worse.
That's what my husband promised:
for better or worse.

I was listened to
as often as my umma.
When I cried out to a nurse
under fluorescent lights,
she was attending to other babies.
When I was providing process improvements,
I was patted on the head,
and the graphs I worked on for months
never performed in front of clients.

I tolerate my husband
when his moods swing down, up, then down again.
We are fragile beings
and criticism from a first-time parent of an infant
takes days to recover from
because he wishes to punish himself
without ever telling me why,
making it a competition at times.
When he apologizes,
he covers his head with ashes
and laments his being born onto this planet.
He doesn't understand why I don't get mad at him.
When he persecutes me, he victimizes
himself and walks around pulling his hair out
in an amusing way,
refusing to care for himself or go to sleep.
We both need to be listened to
by ourselves
as we are both the only ones that can hear
and need to hear
what we tell ourselves
about ourselves.

05/18/2020

Posted on 12/15/2020
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