grin & bear it

i wonder how many times he’s said i love you.//

i wonder how many flowers he’s gifted//, how many 

slow dances he’s danced, the ratio between//

how many bitches// 

to how many loves  he’s uttered in his life. 

i wonder if this is real for him; 

if this is his  second grade diorama of a courtship

made from construction paper and  popsicle sticks//, if this is 

romeo approaching juliet from underneath the balcony, where he has no choice but to 

raise his voice,

or if this is just the unstoppable urge to attach to the first thing with curves that moves - 

if he is just an object who was birthed into motion without control over the idea that he can change; if this is just how nature is supposed to work. 

i wonder about the story behind how his mother plucked his name from a baby book, 

i wonder how many grandparents he’s had to bury, 

how many times he’s cried;//

if he’s ever seen his father fold silently in half and cry, or worse- 

if he saw his mother cry once 

and realized he liked the feeling it //graciously pulled out of his chest.//

i wonder 

if i am something dangerous, like the curve of my body is a bayonet, 

like my thighs are the twin barrels of a shotgun 

and i have learned that a body is a weapon with the harshest of recoils, 

but he has never been taught how to not 

braid love and violence together

since they are both colored red,// 

like he has not been taught that your teeth 

aren't placed in the space between your throat and your lips 

so that you can sharpen your words before you say them,//like he 

has never been taught how to speak without shouting//, 

and i have never been taught how to speak at all.// 

i wonder if the hunger inside Eve’s belly turned into some 

modern-day feminist ache,// 

or if maybe it morphed itself into something more mundane 

like menstrual cramps or hang-nails, 

or the taught way our mouths learn to smile gently 

as they yell to us, if only out of survival.