Fault Lines

by Emily Itami

“Mama, you are the best mommy in the whole entire world.” I kiss his cheeks a hundred times as he tries to squirm away to get a better look, and try not to think about the fact that I’m really, really not.

Parenting is savage—there is no other activity on earth that you could get up to do four times a night for two years straight, and at the end of it be merely in the running for mediocre.

I suppose it’s unsurprising that one might question things sometimes, being in a state of indentured servitude to two small psychopaths.

My children. My life’s work, my greatest loves, orchestrators of total psychological trauma and everyday destruction.

I wasn’t going to fall for him, obviously, because it was too much. Where was the bullshit, the mind-fuckery that made relationships so exciting and traumatic?

And the way I knew exactly where in my chest my heart was, every time he said my name.

You can accept yourself, here, but only if you’re fulfilling your obligation to society.

What are we, apart from the stories we tell ourselves and other people?