Guys, This Is Why Your Girlfriends Keep Buying You Suspenders—It’s Not To Make You Look Gay

Rating: Despite flippant title, this is kind of heavy. Proceed with care.

Daddy unlocks his buckle
with hard unyielding fingers
steadily draws the supple sword from its silent sheath
whence it shall not return unblooded.

Voiceless black leather is beaten sobbing
against unforgiving flesh
with a memory like an elephant’s.
My impotence savages my anger
and the unwanted bastard child rage
is conceived within my body.
I will feed it my blood
the air from my lungs
the water I drink
bearing it viable in the dark
in hours and years of dry labor

and it cries
it cries
it cries

like a baby on an airplane
as heads are turned
and newspapers snapped
exasperated air huffed out of
lungs constricted by relinquished autonomy
and smiling flight attendants
can’t she do anything with
that
brat?

it cries
it cries
it cries



yours in the struggle,
Max