Happily Ever After*

Mommy,

why didn’t you tell me it would be this hard

some days?

That my back would ache

from sleeping on the couch

because he slammed the door in my face

again

and I was reminded of all the ways

I am not enough (for him) despite all of it:

the dishes in the sink or lack thereof,

the soap he has to bathe himself,

the food in these cabinets,

a Christmas at all,

while I wake up to her school alarms

and go to bed to his rhythm

just to have an hour or two (with him),

while I work my own 9 to 5 because we

couldn’t do it without both of us,

while I decorate the tree by myself

and do all the heavy lifting

that he used to do

before his body betrayed him?

Mommy,

why didn’t you tell me

that the tiredness of some mornings stems

from more than the nonstop nature of it all,

that it comes from going to bed at four AM

because I cried myself to sleep

in the other room

while he imagined some version of me

who only thinks about herself?

Mommy,

how do I protect her from seeping into this

loam of reality

some day?

The other side of the mountain,

The bubble burst,

The happily ever after with an asterisk?

/Let her keep believing/

every little girl

still living inside of us:

that the mountain only ever goes up,

that the bubble stays afloat,

that there never has to be an asterisk;