I Dream of real Men posted 7/16/2008 9:54:22 PM | 14 kudos what's this?     report abuse

LaughTillYaPuke

I read to a child. A girl. Of interminable age. My voice, inflection, tone and breath giving life to this dry and dead tale. I roll the bitter words around on my tongue, taking time to make them sweet before breathing them out to her. She is young yet and I want her to have a love of the sounds. The coo's. The sighs. The groans of exertion. To capture all that in 5 letters. It's a gift my daddy said. All gifts are great gifts. Huge. Encompassing. The power to change lives and move souls. It is only our effort that makes them weak and unworthy. To use your gift carelessly is to see it slowly dissolve like ice in the sun.

The author is careless with their gift. Prostituting for money and not for the joy of it. If you are going to spread your legs, do it with a smile on your face I think. The letters float off the page sucked up through my nostrils, down into my lungs where they swirl trying to stick to my insides. I bring them back out. The creator. Life from death. I serve them on a platter for her to consume.

She asks me if I believe in love. The letters lodge in my throat. I cough and grunt to clear the obstruction, the need to reassemble the letters, to make them more palatable. I have heard stories I tell her. I snap the book shut, letters escaping the the pages to float through the air with the motes of dust. Briefly glimpsed from the just right angle and frame of mind.

Real men walk the earth I tell her. They always have. Perhaps not as easily recognizable as they once were, but certainly better disguised. They are like ghosts I tell her. You can never see them straight on. Looking into their eyes will tell you no secrets. Maybe only in death. You can only see them out of the corner of your eye. From your peripheral soul. Brief movements where you are sure they were just there. But when you snap your head, hair in your mouth...they are gone.

Warm bodies, hard souls. They walk in front of you, watch you from a distance and lay on top of you. They eat at your table, drop their clothes on your floor. Their scent permeates your sheets. They laugh from another room, whisper in your ear and breathe against your belly. One large hand cups a childs head. Calloused fingers cradle your breast. Peace found in the boots by the door.

Greatness found in his morning cup of coffee as he looks at all he has created. A heart empty of want. The cold cheek pressed to your neck, the warm lips at your throat. Scent of earth and strength of stone.

She stares into my eyes waiting for the story to begin and I have wasted my gift. All but a few of the letters gone. The wind blows through the curtains and I watch the sharp angles of vowels and diamond glints of dust escape to the rafters. Shadows and dust are gone and the light touches her face making her scars glint like silver and I finally understand. She is me, and I am her. And I wonder if her young mind will remember this dream, this moment in her young psyche. That great men once walked the earth and it is up to her to find them.

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Blogs by LaughTillYaPuke: Puke's got Balls, but Cold has Heart. Back Door Love The Long Road We Lived the Same Closer to Him Lather, Rinse, Repeat Out of the Ordinary Magic 8 Ball I Dream of real Men The Lint Roller I Live like this all Day Long Ride Hate, Misery, and the relief that only comes from sharing it Strut Agenda's The Cloying Sweetness of Roses Burning a Hole in my Pocket Polka Dot Confection Something Delectable I dance with the Goose Man, Coo Coo Kachoo Words, Blood and the Nemesis Lunch Lady Land Knowledge is Power We forget to live Madness and Mayhem