Mothers

I know soft women and difficult women, I know women that are rigid and women that are much more fluid with their imitations of Grace. I’ve met women that showed me just how little I know about women. I’ve met ones that will scrape their teeth on you to ensure they’re not forgotten, ones that plot with fire and ink. Sometimes it seems like spells are cast or Hell is not as vast as one might think. Like cracks and crevices are opened up and from the Earth seeps femininity. Perhaps the stories that are told are far too bold to be the truth, perhaps the universe and the mothers that give birth are one inside the same. I know that when I set my eyes upon them I am flayed alive, my soul and body separated or atleast that’s how it feels. The nerves connected through my body all project an image of atonement, blazing light from heart and lungs, intestines spilling out. Upon the wall I’m nearest or the hardwood floor or taller grass from meadows one might see displayed a boy bending both his knees. A head bowed down with arms stretched out and seeking to be put to use. I’m naked in the sunlight in some lovers sleeping chamber, draped by wrist and ankle from two hooks placed in the ceiling. A cat or two or sometimes dogs look up at me and ponder my predicament. I lament decisions that were made when sweat pours down my temples to the floor below, only to be lapped up by the curious. These are all just pretty ways of saying that I’m captured completely when the flesh and bones and organs that make up a woman are arranged before me. I am cut open by their eyes and when their voices claw their way into canals, my ears ring in similar fashion to the sounds of war and death, of screams and bombs and metal hitting metal. I know women that will produce the clothing from their bodies in trade for mere scraps of affection and attention. Sometimes I feel quite inadequate and so I scramble in attempts to satisfy their needs. I trip over myself and while quite foolish I am foolproof in maneuvering once settled down in place. It helps when they take hold or when they’re quick to fold like paper planes, into the shapes I need them in. To be of service means to exhaust the body and the spirit of all energy, I think the fact that I propose so many questions may convey that I am caring in the acts. To be of service is to have a purpose in this world. To please those that bring about new life and stave off our extinction means the most to me. I think that when the world made me, I was plucked piece by piece from this drawer and that, meticulously misshapen and misplaced accordingly. I think that the very soul inside me must have rolled beneath a table or an armoire for a century or so. I think the way I give is of little consequence to the women that walk the earth these days. I am picked up and played with and placed back on the edge of the sofa, only to fall and lose my composure upon hitting head against laminate. I am given labels that don’t stick, perhaps from a forehead far too sweaty or a fault that I am unfamiliar with. My eyes are looked into until the light has left and what color might remain turns inward into grey. I’m told to stay but walked away from, as if I am a pet that must obey. The worst thing about a man like me is that I’m awfully awful when it comes to listening, as I love the sun too much and stray through open doors. I’d chew a leash up too if someone was so stupid to believe that such a thing might work. I think the thing I need is to be needed. I think the thing I want is to be wanted. I think the thing I keep asking for is to be kept. But kept as in beside someone and not in such a way that I am put out on display. I think that I’ll keep running if nobody cares to stop me.