MAID OF MEN
How many of them have I met? Loved? Enough, to coarsen the skin on my bones to that of unvarnished wood, prickly at the sides, so coarse I've become, I've come to accept that I could be a muse for a painter perhaps, broken and beautiful, alone and loving, smiling and cold; I fold, Did so when the last man I draped with love, loved me until they needed me no more, I'd fed them, fortified them, Pleased them, Held them, laughed with them, spent for them 'till the earth's axis tilted to deliver new blessings in their lives and suddenly I became less of a necessity and more of a complicated broad embroiling his peace, His precious peace that I dug out from the earth with my hands, feet, tears and sweat, mountain-moving prayers I fedex'ed to the Lord daily to have mercy on these humanly creations And now here we are! In a cockpit of random acts of kindness spurred by my begging; Yes, I have had to beg for them to show some sweetness, they did for a short while perhaps plagued by guilt or gratitude never quite knew but it was always so short-lived, the sweetness. I would soon find myself empty again curled in a ball inside of myself wondering if I was expected to surrender every part of my life in exchange for a thank you and a poetic compliment? Was I the maid of men to be used to fix broken fixtures in their lives and expected to quietly gather my rosebuds at the end of their plight and discreetly exit using the back door making sure to not make a fuss or show of it all? When they looked at me, Did they see strength that needed no shoulder or did they not think of me at all? Did they contemplate me as a "situation" with their brothers in phone and bar conversations, a needy little little thing that did too much or was there no thought to begin with? Or Was I a complimentary hot plate, a good fuck and a nice little girl that fell in love with wolves and had no idea.
I felt them all, all those things I thought in moments of quiet, I felt them as their unforeseen egos grabbed their necks egging them on to ignore my sensibilities, reduced to text messages sending well wishes as I swam up my tide vomiting water trying to stay afloat swimming to survive the night alone, ignored as I asked for little pleasures that appeased my romantic heart; trying hard for one day was the general game to soon resolve back to what mattered most to them, And there it was! The rolling revelation that jolts the spirit up to attention!
ATTENTION WOMAN! You are not important. They will never move mountains to see you smile, they will never give up too much so you can have a little, they will never do what means nothing to them and everything to you, you are a yield sign on their way to their stop sign. It must be then, It must be true as I examine who I have been and what they have done for me, it must be my truth, I must be the maid of men. Made to scrub the blood off their walls from gone-by lovers, to lick their wounds in my bed as their heads cradled by bosom, lactating my power to strengthen themselves, availing my self at any hour should their cries come knocking on my doorstep, saving them from the ugly corners of the city that seduced young men everyday, and fucking them good for good measure. Except it was more of an emptying of the my soul 'till my ovaries had no life left to give is more of what I did. I only expected very little, no money, no gifts, no wild adventures tagged with thousands of dollars, just simple little things that meant nothing to them and everything to me. With each each passing week I noticed my little pleasures dissipating into forgotten suggestions by me, he was whispering in my ear, you are a maid of men.
