05-22-2011, 12:10 PM
Of course there is love. When I pictured you dead
it was too much to bare, the bravado in dreams
where I slaughtered you, patricidal maniac
avenging petty slights, reduced to a guilt
that I could think thus. In the afternoon light,
walking back from a PE class,
a bully told me he'd kill you. He wanted to make me cry.
I was stunned I almost did. I loathe your masculinity.
Your stupid pompous manliness, how it manifests itself
in almost everything you do. Red whirlwind of ignorance.
You are my wire mother, brandishing the milk bottle
I rely on to survive. I blame you for not providing me cloth,
a parent to cuddle and sing lullabies. But then there is love.
For all the times in childhood the sandman brought me
knives and guns to slay you with while night crept on,
I am not a violent man, and you were not as bad as some.
![[Image: fig4.jpg]](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HZ8CC2vzGYs/Tbhx5ehIFDI/AAAAAAAAABI/U-3nTEirdRk/s1600/fig4.jpg)
it was too much to bare, the bravado in dreams
where I slaughtered you, patricidal maniac
avenging petty slights, reduced to a guilt
that I could think thus. In the afternoon light,
walking back from a PE class,
a bully told me he'd kill you. He wanted to make me cry.
I was stunned I almost did. I loathe your masculinity.
Your stupid pompous manliness, how it manifests itself
in almost everything you do. Red whirlwind of ignorance.
You are my wire mother, brandishing the milk bottle
I rely on to survive. I blame you for not providing me cloth,
a parent to cuddle and sing lullabies. But then there is love.
For all the times in childhood the sandman brought me
knives and guns to slay you with while night crept on,
I am not a violent man, and you were not as bad as some.
"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges." - Gene Wolfe
This is a poem which is so intensely personal that I worried it might seem artless, so your praise really means a lot.
