Standards and roles
My neighbour says
She will enforce
No apology for making a boy
Feel scared
Treating him like a predator
For the temerity to walk
With his best friend Izzy
To play at the park
Raging at the rigid container
Roughly chucked at his gentle soul
Pressing on his free spirit
A mantle of weight and grief
He walks the long way around the block
To avoid her pointed stares
A grown woman
Should fucking know better
Today he scraped his knee
Blood pooling through his pants
I washed it carefully
Applied a bandaid for protection
As I blew soft air on his wound
I thought of all of the injuries to come
Just because of his container
All my efforts to raise a feminist
Who understands
Everyone is equal
But also
We give extra support to some
Ensure their voices are heard
A boy who has pats for cats
And pads in his backpack
Just in case a friend is in need
Is afraid to walk alone
Like all of us women
(And trans friends too)
I will burn bridges
Bras
Bibles
Pink and blue
From the face of the earth
Little boys also need protection
From cages
About the Creator
Aspen Marie
In love with life and all of its foibles.
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More stories from Aspen Marie and writers in Poets and other communities.
'20/20'
"Do It Again" the track that would ultimately open the Beach Boys final album on Capitol Records which was released on February 10th 1969 had originally been released as a single in August of 1968. The track was the first of many post-Pet Sounds era throwbacks to the early Beach Boys sound which would become continually more cliched and eventually lead the Beach Boys to the level of self-parody they would eventually succumb to in the 1980s while their closest contemporaries The Beatles nearing the end of their run in 1969 would go on to be viewed as the most influential band of all time. However, the song itself is not bad on its surface, and it opens with a futuristic sounding (for 1969) drumbeat captured by then-Beach Boys engineer Stephen Desper using tape delays on the drums performed by Dennis Wilson and John Guerin. The song has been re-recorded numerous times over the years on various Beach Boys-related projects most notably the 2011 re-recording at Capitol studios featuring the five surviving Beach Boys at the time backed instrumentally by various members of both the Brian Wilson Band and Mike Loves touring "Beach Boys" to promote the then upcoming Beach Boys 50th Anniversary reunion tour in 2012. The hammering and power drill sound at the end of the song was an excerpt from a track called "Workshop" that was to be a part of the uncompleted "SMiLE" album.
By Sean Callaghan7 days ago in Beat
Comments (2)
This was so powerful, Marie, my goodness. Is it based on a true story? If so, shame on your neighbor. I hate the idea of warping something as sweet and beautiful as two kids hanging out into something bad or wrong. Little boys absolutely do deserve protection from cages too.
Fantastic poem and well written.