Intimate Wounds

If bedhead were representative of anxiety
my racing heart would be visible through breakfast
electrified coils springing all directions
my curls a map
of the nightmares firing on me
I stumble through sleep.

Standing naked in a high school hallway
I’d prefer it to seeing my children reenact
my childhood, my intimate wounds fresh
on their minds and bodies, and me
underwater, drowning in the trying
to save them.

I’d prefer repeating my own childhood
to witnessing theirs be destroyed
all hammers to innocence
no room for sincerity except in regret
hyper-vigilance in the daylight
as though light makes demons scarce.