F Cade Swanson
Breakfast
The dogs wake me before my alarm,
Wet nosed greetings in my face.
I slip on my pants
and find my shoes.
We walk the block before our neighbors are up;
Morning is best time of the day.
Birds sing, trees rustle.
The sun peeks out from behind the evergreens.
Sometimes we see an eagle.
The dogs and I return home as the kids are waking up.
It’s time for me to make breakfast.
Jade likes a toasted English Muffin with a fried egg
where the yolk is just soft enough to run,
but hard enough not to drip all over her hands and nails.
Noah always has oatmeal,
with blueberries if we have them.
Jaylen has eggs with toast.
We call them dippy eggs.
My meds are to be taken with a 400 calorie meal,
so I make myself two eggs
with a slice of turkey.
I wash down my pills with coffee,
a chaser of probiotics and vitamins,
and a protein shake.
When I first got my HIV diagnosis,
It was winter.
Jade was two years old
Jaylen was six
And we hadn’t yet met Noah.
I was overwhelmed.
Feelings of shame and guilt
soaked deep into my bones
like the Seattle rain that winter.
I could not get warm.
I could not get dry.
I did not take pills with breakfast.
Worried about getting sick,
I worried more about my kids finding out I was sick.
Afraid of dying,
but more afraid my kids would think I was going to die.
I did not want to leave them,
but mostly needed to assure them I would stay.
And so breakfast became our routine,
A communion of love,
a way to start our day.
Together.
One where my children taught me
How to love myself again,
To warm back up
And dry back out
Over toasted bread, eggs and oatmeal.
One where I showed them I am still here.
For them,
Because of them,
And thanks to them.
I am still here.
F Cade Swanson is a queer dad who grew up in southeast Virginia. He runs a community center in Seattle, WA and his work has appeared in Soliloquies Anthology, Chaleur Magazine, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art & Healing, and Stonewall’s Legacy Anthology.
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