it’s the hour in the rotation of the world when i don’t know why i think and i only hear snippets of what she tells me in between her gulps of coffee it has to be that i’ve lost my mind i think but i’m not sure she continues on to point out how difficult things are and how weak people are and i say they never stop to think that women like us have had it hard she agrees with hot coffee in her throat mid gulp gesturing a resounding yes with her thin eyebrows pointing up like a big foam hand at a baseball game he wanted masculine children and he cried when he had us but we had to be ladies in the midst of manly challenges how the minds were molded i think and i quip out loud there are no real man or woman challenges we get equal problems shoved down our throats and we gotta grow a dick to solve them and then chop it off when we’re done cut us a slit and put on lipstick and smile and stick out our boobs and then take it like a man all over again and again yet i’ve known so many who fold at the slightest breeze of uncertainty

and we laugh at the newest meteor hail storm we’re coasting through i marvel at our ability to be A Lincoln M Monroe J Dillinger and E Roosevelt all in one mind warp to answer and resolve the sums and restitutions owed by our father we are told girls don’t hold a quiver in your voice but it’s expected that when the crowds go home you should wither like a delicate orchid ripped from its stem and i see her from the corner of my eye tired a daddy’s little girl who is now the man of his house a mother and a father to us all she’s tired then i look down at my big boy feet my small girl hands my soldier’s soul my lost spirit angst and it becomes unbearable