how long must I stay?

i told you i was saddened - too many people feed wild animals, mistakenly believing “once won’t hurt”. too many people think that wild animals are just bigger/smaller versions of domestic animals - they see a fox running around a house on youtube and think that’s a catdog and i could keep it. i told you that the worst part of working with wildlife was having to take care of the aftershock of this. in my state, any nondomestic animal that bites a human must be put down to check for rabies, even if we are positive the animal is safe. the government just slashed the budget again, no more EPA. around this time every year, we spend hours on the phone trying to rehome creatures that can’t survive in the wild anymore - someone thought a feral animal could be “taught” to be a pet. 

a woman cries to me. the fox in the basket is growling. “i thought it was like a dog,” she says. “I didn’t know it would be this much trouble.”

i told you -  why can’t people understand that care can look different on different bodies. that sometimes love for one thing is not love for another. that it can be selfish to want to hold something that was not meant to be held. the lovely thing is that we have plenty to hold, and each other, and a whole world; but there are things with hearts that should stay in the woods. it’s not yours to touch, is all.

you told me: let people have their fun. it’s one raccoon. it’s one bird full of bread. it’s not that big of a deal. 

much later, long after you had been washed out of my hair and my life and my hurting - i realized you would leave little bruises on me, but hated whenever my lipstick smudged across your cheek. you used to say - i just don’t like the feeling. you would bite my lip until it bled and look down at me and say - marking my territory. 

the men in my life are good men. recently at a hardware store one of the men in my life let me stand behind him, just a little, in that ghosting way that girls can learn. the disappearing technique we master of shadowing behind our Good Men. this was to protect me from a man who was not-being-good.

i fall down. one of the good men in my life offers me one arm like a knight, we are laughing while i clamber back onto my feet. i give the good men in my life piggy back rides because i like to show off how strong i am. i give the good men in my life run-at-them hugs. i let the good men in my life pick me up like i am a sack of grain; i get the good men in my life coffee, i make them sandwiches, i teach them dancing.

i am a man-hater, obviously. i am gay enough the insult is sort of funny. waiting for the bus, where there are men who are not-known-to-be-good, i google how to make a fist. i can never remember if the thumb goes on the outside or the inside, only that it is imperative that i do not fuck it up or i will break my thumb at the same time the man tries to break me. 

i walk my dog around the track only-at-dusk and-no-later. i made that mistake once, in august, hoping i could take a later run and maybe see the stars - i romanticized the idea of being able to skulk like a fox. the man that followed me across three lawns, two road-crossings, and back to my car - he spent the whole time whistling. the good men in my life say - oh, do you need me to come with you? and are actually asking - do you feel safe?

i fall down in a supermarket. a man i do not know grabs the inside of my knee. i do not know if the man is good, but i am supposed to give men the benefit of the doubt, so i laugh while standing. a man trying-to-be-in-my-life says what, no hug? and i have to decide if it worth it to just take off or put up with it. a man who-might-not-be-good stares at me while i walk by - i have to calculate if he’s just looking or if he’s watching. other men have badly hurt me, physically. the casual remark made is that those men are not real men. but they were real enough, to me.

there are many men who are mad at me. an entire reddit thread once was dedicated to how to dox me for feminist ranting - it was kind of funny, when it wasn’t downright scary. i have been stalked and harassed and treated horribly. they are all good men, in their own lives, you know. they are not violent, usually, unless provoked, and all it takes for a man to be good is for him to not be violent unless provoked, and i am, of course, always provoking.

a man in my life rolls his eyes. “i am sick of hearing this. we get it, all men are fucking evil. get over it.”

a man who-is-not-good shouts something unwritable at me. i have to tell the good man i am standing next to - it’s okay, this is nothing compared to what-could-be, this happens, it’s really not that big of a deal to me.