Bring Back Big Families

One poem every day for twenty-eight straight days this February. Suffice it to say, I’m in my Poetry Era.

Most nights unfold the same way.
My four-year-old wages war on sleep—
one more story,
one more sip,
one more urgent whisper through the dark.
Then the escapes: feet thumping the floor,
five times, six, seven,
each return a tiny surrender.

I begin gentle.
Always.
A low voice, a steady command.
But the cracks appear—
third walk-back,
fourth plea,
tears (his, mine, who can tell anymore).
The volume rises.
Words sharpen.
Threats I never meant to keep.
The baby gate closes too hard.

Silence finally claims the house.

Then guilt arrives,
uninvited guest,
heavy coat draped over my chest.
I sit in the dim bedroom glow
or lie staring at ceiling cracks,
replaying every raised tone,
every clipped good night.
Why again?
Why can’t the calm hold?
Am I the storm he fears most?

He is four.
I know the script:
big feelings, small body,
testing edges in the only way he knows.
Tomorrow he’ll wake laughing,
arms wide,
memory wiped clean.
Tonight it feels like evidence—
I am not the father I promised myself I’d be.

Guilt doesn’t listen to reason.
It ignores the long day, the empty tank,
the ordinary chaos of four.
It simply repeats:
A better man would never break.
A better man would have endless soft.

And still—
I keep returning.
I keep reading the extra page.
I keep whispering love through burning eyelids.
I keep rising the next night
to lay down beside him,
breath held,
hoping this time the patience lasts longer.

Not perfection.
Not even close.
Just the stubborn habit of showing up,
even when I’ve already failed the moment.

Maybe that’s the quiet thing worth keeping—
the coming back.
The love so large
every stumble cuts deeper than it should.

For in the night,
in the hush after battle,
it has to be enough
that I’m still here.

Until the two-year-old
shatters what little sleep I get.
Then it’s back to where it all started
and never seems to end.

Epilogue:

If the weight feels familiar tonight,
just leave a single word below.
“Same.”
No solutions required.
Only the small comfort
of not sitting alone in the dark.