Baby

It's never the baby that I hate, but the baby is usually the catalyst. Sitting there sucking its thumb, lying on its back resting peacefully, staring up at a mobile or sucking on a pacifier. It knows nothing, or at least very little, and I am taken to a hundred thousand places where I never wanted to be again, a hundred thousand places where I might end up. Scraped off wallpaper, new end tables, candles and extra candles in the cupboards. Surround sound, garbage pick-up, a fridge that has food, food enough for an entire family, creamed things in tiny glass jars and spoons tinier still.

Every decision we've ever made hinges on everything we've learned up until that point. There is no deciding, no choosing, everything is informed, everything is set in stone. Like a baby's unformed skull, the pieces of me come together in a pattern predesigned. Whoever I am, whatever I'm supposed to be, was agreed upon the moment I saw light. There's a time exists where I know all the things I don't know now. He, I, am waiting for myself, watching through the years and saying that it has to be this way because it's the only way it ever could. I can see me, smiling, I know I am shaking my head. Ooh la la, as the song goes. Ooh la la.