We lay in the dark
pushing back sleep with our whisper voices,
trading puns and sayings about money.
We are competitive with each other,
me, my husband and our son,
jabbing at the quiet
with another one
and another one.
Pass the buck.
That doesn’t make “cents.”
Oh, that’s rich.
We laugh at each one,
quietly so we don’t wake our daughter,
but mostly our brains are revving
as we each scavenge the invisible shelves
of everything we know
to win this silly game.
Finally, the room is silent
and I think maybe we are done
or my son has fallen asleep
but then my daughter’s soft voice
who I thought had been asleep for ages:
It’s hard for me to play
because I don’t know much things.
This makes us laugh the hardest,
and I cuddle into her sincere little face,
thanking her for showing us
how to pry open our gates
of perfectionism
and make way
for the parts of ourselves
that have been waiting so long
to be real.
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