You think you know who you are. You spend decades building a life, working jobs you hate, and playing the part of the dutiful son. You move across an ocean. You learn a new tongue. You become the man everyone expects you to be. Then you find yourself in a dark room at 3 AM with a crying infant and you realize you don't know anything at all. The apartment was small. We had one window that looked out at a brick wall. It was August. The heat in this country is different—it sticks to you like grease. My son wouldn't sleep. He had been screaming for three hours. My wife was exhausted, finally passed out in the other room. I was the one on duty. I was the rock. That is what we are taught back home. Men provide. Men endure. Men do not break. I was rocking him in that cheap wooden chair. It squeaked every time I moved. My arms were lead. My head was spinning from the lack of sleep and the smell of sour milk. I looked down at him. He was so small. His skin was translucent. I could see the pulse in the soft spot on his head. He was completely at my mercy. He was the most precious thing I owned. Then it happened. A thought as sharp as a razor. It wasn't a "feeling." It was an urge. A physical itch in my wrists and palms. I looked at the hardwood floor between my feet. I thought about how easy it would be to just... let go. To open my hands and let gravity take him. I imagined the sound his head would make against the floor. I imagined the silence that would follow. THE TOTAL SILENCE. No more screaming. No more weight. Just an end to it. It wasn't about hate. I didn't hate him. I loved him more than my own life. But there was a monster sitting right behind my eyes. It told me that I had the power to destroy everything in one second. You look at that tiny, fragile neck and you realize how thin the line is between a father and a killer. You realize that all your "decency" is just a thin coat of paint over something very dark and very old. I didn't put him down. I didn't move. I sat there for an hour with my hands locked tight around his ribs. My knuckles were white. I was terrified of my own fingers. I felt like a man holding a live grenade. I didn't pray. I don't believe in that. I just stared at the floor and waited for the sun to come up. I waited for the world to become normal again so I could pretend I wasn't the man who wanted to drop his child. In my culture, we don't talk about this. You tell your father and he calls you a coward. You tell your wife and she takes the baby and leaves. You carry it. You bury it deep under the work and the bills and the holidays. You see other fathers smiling at their kids and you know they're lying too. They’ve felt it. They’ve seen the floor calling to them. They just don't have the guts to say it out loud. I’m seventy now. My son is a man. He has his own house. He has a good life. I watch him with his own children and I see that look in his eyes sometimes—the thousand-yard stare. I see the way he grips their strollers a little too hard when they won't stop crying. I want to tell him it's okay. I want to tell him that he isn't a monster. But I don't. We just sit there and drink our tea and talk about the weather. Don't tell me about your "unconditional love." Don't give me that Hallmark garbage. Love is a choice you make every second to not act on the violence inside you. It’s a battle. Every time you hold someone you love, you are also holding the power to ruin them. If that doesn't scare you, then you aren't paying attention. You aren't being honest with yourself. I’m not sorry. I’m not looking for forgiveness. I did my duty. I raised him. I protected him from everything—especially from me. That is what a man does. He carries the dark stuff so the people he loves can live in the light. You can judge me all you want. I don't care. I know the truth about what’s inside the human heart. It’s a lot heavier than a four-month-old baby. And it never goes away... it just waits.