before :
you wanted to be the man
she needed you to be,
wanted to catch spiders and
fix leaks, build shelves and
drive the moving van. you
wanted
to love her the way she expected a
man to do: quiet, solemn, bearing his
turmoil with a stony face of
unrelenting jaw; you wanted to be
the provider, the unmoving shoulder
on which she could rest, the fighter,
the one proof to her father that some
men still know how to properly treat
their woman
some men still know not to walk before
their woman with their eyes crossed
backward away from the outback
steakhouse at which grandma
reminisces of times when grandpa laid
down his coat
///you wanted to be anything for her, except for what you
were
soyoupressedyourfingers to
your temples soyou spent
countless nights on the couch,
staying up watching wrestling and
pretending you didn’t feel bile in your
throa
t
soyou either drankor
put on the tv or tried to
get laid or made dinner
or played with the cats
or asked about her
mom any time you
were alone at home
together
soyou stayed for years
and ceaseless, uncaring
years
soyou stayed
until you could
no longer stay
//////////////////////
/
after
:
you started shitting blood a week
before; you couldn’t piss
regularly. reasonably, you
thought you were going to die
a first brush, at last, with the
limitations of these bodies we get
stuck inside
the doctors scanned you,
wondering if an unknown entity
had sprouted in your stomach,
colon, intestines, rectum
they said, all men over fifty should regularly have
their colorectal health examined; here, at the
gastroenterologist you thought for the first time i am
not a man. and although your ass bled and although
your prostate swelled to block your urethra from
passing urine and although you needed the
examinations a man twice your age needs, you finally
had the words to distance yourself from him
//blood in the mouth, dried out
tongue and a sun too bright for this
side of the train, all the seats taken
on the shaded half. the people from
south amboy got first dibs.
friday before labor day and no one
seems to have any plans, so you’ll
spend it alone with a book again,
gunked up and isolated from the
picture frame self, questioning who
“he” was in the first place.
no more nights of huddled fire between
your legs or in your chest as your heart
races toward the thousands. the
cul-de-sac in which you’ve hidden has
been condemned and resold.
developers are hungry but the land
rejects all advances; the Earth wants
her skin back, fights away all suitors
with marsh and magma, but who
knows how long that will last?
you were left behind for cincinnati, a
tattoo, and isolation in a kitchen, so you left
too, for the promise of a fool, lakefront
wind messing up your hair.
D.R. Baker is the founder and editor of Tiny Essays. Their writing has appeared at Book Riot, Memoir Mixtapes, Bright Wall/Dark Room, The Young Folks, Independent Music News, and others. As a musician, they have played guitar and bass for various acts over the past decade. Raised in New Jersey, educated in Ohio, and with brief forays into Michigan and Nevada, Dan now lives in New York City with their partner. Website: danbakerisokay.com | Twitter: @danbakerisokay
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