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Be A Man

Be a man.

I've been told this, mostly at moments of perceived weakness. Not often, and when much younger than I am now, but often enough to remember clearly.

I still don't know what it means—to be a man.

The more I think about gender, in general and my own, I keep scratching my head trying to understand  what should be the easy-to-see, normal, normative, default status of "male."

Women stare.

Far more often than not, they avert their eyes.

Men's eyes tend to linger—penetrating insight into a difference between the two.

But gay men?  Eyelock must ensue?

What do people see when they look at me?

Patriarchy and misogyny exist and have tremendous force in creating our world.

Male-imposed, capitulated to by women, jointly created?

All of the above.

When women stare, they might make a glance at "what you're packin' inside that denim," to quote Ke$ha, a personal hero of mine, in one of her odes of feminist empowerment—or at abs or pecs, "t-shirt tight."

But more often they check in by checking out my face—they want to look into my eyes and, I imagine, to have me, to have anyone, look back into theirs.

But return a look, no less a stare, and down goes her glance.

Mysterious inexplicable sculpture.

Ani sings "self-preservation is a fulltime occupation," that "they'll stop at nothing when they know what you're worth:" so "you know I don't avert my eyes anymore in a man's world."

Few listen, from what I've seen.

We tend to be tits-and-ass focussed, at least when it comes to embodied values. Sports, illustrated, for instance, by the Swimsuit Edition.

If, to return to Ke$ha, power arises with "Daisy dukes showing off my ass / and when I walk past give the boys whiplash," then where does responsibility fall?

Why do blonde hair hair and blue eyes and broad shoulders attract so much attention?  What eternal desire can we not meet, must we keep seeking over and again at our own peril?

THRASHER?!?

So many questions, and a paucity of good answers amidst the proliferation of gender studies.  

To be a man. To be strong? To take charge, to control?

I must need to re-read Fanny Hill—you should take a look if you've never done so before.

Any tool is a weapon if you hold it right.

I Killed My Mother

Arnold Street, Lincoln, RI c. 1994

I killed my mother.

I let her die when others would have done more to let her live.

How could I?

She didn't know her name.  She didn't know my name.  She didn't know she should eat, or even what it meant to eat.  She screamed hysterically whenever anyone tried to put food in her mouth.

So I let her die.

My mother had advanced-stage Alzheimer's disease, though she was young - just 63 years old.  

"Her body is so strong," said the nun-like nursing coordinating at the home where she received care.

I said I didn't care.

No feeding tube, no electroshock therapy to "calm her nerves."

Let her die.

My mother was literally paralysed by fear, paranoid, delusional, incomprehensible: cowering in her bed, crying, whimpering, unable to sit still or escape convulsive pain.

"It's all in her mind," said one doctor.

What mind, I asked?

I demanded hospice and morphine.  LET HER DIE.

"But she has more than six months to live," I was told.  Not eligible for hospice care.

Could she ever find peace?

What, I asked?  

She barely has six days to live, she won't eat.

Finally I called state agencies, I threatened to sue the nun-like nurse and her home.  Finally, they relented, they released her to a new facility.

The new doctor understood.  No more anti-psychotic medication that didn't work, that actually made it worse.  No more "rehabilitative" therapies.  Just opiates and the occasional moments of peace that they brought.

She would get up in the middle of the night and scream.  

More morphine, I said.

I refuse to let her suffer.

More morphine.

As expected, her breathing became more shallow over the period of a few days.  

Fluid began to collect in her lungs: she began to aspirate.

Slowly, finally, with furtive, miserable, squirming resignation, my mother died.

I only wonder why I waited so long.


i killed my mother i let her die what 
else

could
i 

I like to believe in heaven and that my mother is there now.