The Prototypical Male response
to a woman who
won’t stop criticizing,
complaining and declaiming,
engaging in pointless banter,
ruffling calm waters best left
smoothed with rude
and hateful
chatter,

Is a backhand across the mouth.
A stumbling body traveling south:
a deed that can’t be undone,
a love song that can’t be sung,
fight night’s twelfth-round bell,
rung.

Would you rather I
be The Bitch
and engage you verbally,
tit for tat, this for that,
your curses returned
verse for verse,
your fingers threatening 911,
your screams already
rehearsed?

Or should I
be The Man,
prototypically speaking, and,
beat you down, then
swing you round and round,
pull the phone out the wall and
dare you to call the cops
while the children watch,
yelling and screaming for
mama and daddy to
stop?

I know how you grew up,
all that violence in your household,
your mama died when you were
only four years old,
you and your twin brother
left alone,
moving from dysfunctional house
to unhappy home.
Being raised by older
brothers and sisters,
aunts and cousins,
never knowing the loving
comfort of a mother’s arms,
your daddy distant,
leaving you to the cold comfort of
an uncle’s unwelcomed charms.

But the cycle’s got to stop,
the verbal and physical violence
has to end,
because it’s not only your soul
to which you now have
to tend.

The girls, they model you in
everything you do.
Your attitude toward men
is where theirs will begin.
The negativity you unwind is
fertile till for young,
impressionable minds.

You know my life wasn’t
like that, I have parents
who are my roadmap:
a father who has raised
two successful daughters
and a son,
a mother whose soul is bright,
like the sun
and who loves you, too,
no matter what you do.

But I’m sorry I can’t be your
Prototypical Male,
because I’m trying hard
not to go to Hell.
But every once and again
you bring me to the edge,
make me want to return to
a life of sin,
your talented tongue cutting,
twisting and turning
as the knife goes in
and then comes back out,
gushing blood accompanied by
an anguished shout,
as I despair
of us ever going there,

sharing a life of love
and peace beyond belief.
And still I stay,
listening as you say that
it’s all my fault,
I’m the Devil that
makes you do
the things you do,
if I’d only shut up then
you would too, if I’d only
do what you told me to,
then the sky would be
blue

and the sun would shine
everyday,
the children would know
only laughter and play
and our lives would be lived
far away from the fray,
from the trials and travails
against which we
pray.

The Prototype is proven
by life,
by generations of
dysfunction,
by violence and love’s
conjunction.

I’m not The One.
And so it seems, that
our love may be irrevocably
undone.