Clench

If you'd asked me once,

I'd have called them monsters

because we have words

for men

who do this:

inexplicable,

inhuman,

ordinary.

*

On our fifth date, after the movie,

on the dark walk back to the car

you told me you felt safe

alone with me and I said

thank you. I said I try. I said

I would understand if you didn't.

*

My mother raised me

to be better than the long line

of bottles and fists and mottled skin.

Her bloodline always lived

closest to the surface

but she raised me as tender as an orchid,

never pushed me to stop crying,

bought the baby dolls and pink polo shirts.

Our flat was filled with feminist nursery rhymes

and protest signs. I learned the dance of signaled safety,

to stay in the light, to give berth, to hold my hands open, pitch my voice high.

She raised a man a woman could trust,

she always said, and I bore the responsibility

like a pride flag,

like a bolder, braver way

of being.

*

I could tell you I'd been drinking.

*

Except all I'd had was Sprite.

*

I could say we were in our fourth fight

in three days, and I had never felt

more alone and unheard

in my life; I could say

that you gestured to the dirty laundry

and called me just another man

and the shame curled my entire body -

clenched my guts, my lungs,

my fist.

*

I've heard this story too many times

to think I could ever be in it:

palm to cheek,

fist to jaw,

the whiplash,

the way fear flash-floods the room -

I could tell you in my sleep

what a monster looks like,

but right now,

for the first time

I could tell you

how a monster

happens.