If I were a man, maybe I’d be the kind of man who hits women, who snaps and shakes a baby, who drags his child by the arm across a parking lot. If I were a man, maybe I would have left my son by now. Dead-beat dad. No ties to bind. No evidence to cover up. No silvery stretched skin bearing the proof. Maybe I’d be the kind of man who leaves because staying means feeling, and feeling means staying.
My emotions come on too fast and strong. They gather in my chest like an itch. I feel a pillow over my face. A cover over my coffin. I feel the tingle of adrenaline in my hands and fingertips. I feel a punch in my fists. I want to lash out, just to slow everything down, quiet it all, perhaps shock myself into silence. I feel an urge in my thighs to stretch, expand, put miles between me and what I might have done if I’d stayed.
My love for Noah is combustible. Powder and strike. The intensity of my love threatens to stoke my gasoline-soaked heart into wild flames, and I want to beat it to the punch, fight and flight. But it’s no good. I am a woman. And I am his mother. Presence or absence could land the final blow, scrape against flint, phosphorus and sulfur smoke. I have no choice but to wrap my arms tightly around him, prevent the distance that allows for a leak of oxygen to snake in and fan my fears, and, against my better judgment, I stay.
Rough Drafts Only 