the emptiness

I thought I could fill it up. I thought the bitterness would leave if I could do this one thing. But it seems to approach impossibility to be a good parent when you are broken. I have been a good parent, considering. I wait for it to play out, wondering what I could do now.  He has been loved, an accomplishment I do not discount. My greatest fear when I learned I was pregnant was that I would never be able to love anyone, that someone else would have to grow up knowing that pain, filled with this voracious void, a rabid animal all mouth and razor-sharp teeth, stopping only when exhausting itself from ripping at that center where something should be, where something tries to be again and again, futilely.