gift of life

this morning:

she's just failed at the second of two attempts in ten months, not as monumentally this time, but still an aching failure, which leaves her with a body not a temple, but a dungeon, in which she's trapped and constantly staring down shrinking breasts, billowing pimples, barren womb. she has failed in her biological duty to protect the species' most helpless, which leaves her helpless, hopeless, useless; still, without direct and bloody evidence, she struggles to hold out hope for herself, for them, for all the unrequited loves she feels she's losing, having only barely touched. she's not sure if she wants it to pour from her or not; what would it mean if it didn't? she reaches for him at night, needing to hold him, touch him, feel useful, wanted, needed, full, and he pushes her hands away, sighing, suddenly snoring. she reaches for him in the morning, and he rolls his eyes, annoyed by the depth of her need; she tells him, "i'm sad," trying to convey the enormity of her loss in socially acceptable, transparent means, only to have him respond, "i know," and leave. and she lies, tangled in sheets hardly sullied, contemtuously mournful because, although it's not the same, last time breathes frighteningly in her ear. she fights an uphill battle during the day, the bottom looming terrifyingly upward at her, knowing her father inches closer to death each day and not knowing if she wants him dead or alive just long enough to know she's sorry, just long enough to understand that all those years, all those times, it wasn't really what she meant. and it all oozes slowly from her just like he seeps from between the sheets, out the back door, trickling down the steps, away, leaving her holding out hope for the next time they're together, and she finds herself dismayed when he starts snoring, aching emptily not just because her need is unfulfilled, but also because he makes her beg--the synergy she felt in maine disappointingly diminished, her bodily pain exacerbated by his lust for all things busty, feminine, airbrushed into perfection. and she lies next to him, sobbing in time to his snores, imperfectly outlined, unfemininely empty. but still she feels oddly full, having not yet truly shed the remnants of this year's death. she looks up at the sky as he trots cheerfully beside her, watches it graying, moving, and hopes for torrential rain that will allow her to cry without him noticing, sighing, rolling his eyes, burdened by the hurricane of her pain.

then, this afternoon:

she reaches over, not really knowing what to say, takes a handful of my wet, rusty hair, proclaims its beauty and asks if i'm not going to give it away. i want to slap her, watch her eyes uncrinkle in shock, maybe a thin line of blood dribble from her nostril. i want to grab her, shake her. i want to pierce her as she has me. have i not given enough? does he not sit giggling shyly, his shock of blonde hair waving in the wind, behind me? am i not empty enough? i understand his mumbojumbo speech and seemingly confused gestures better than she does, and i think, one body, one blood, one understanding, but know that, really, it has nothing to do with who bore him and when and more to do with who she is inside and what she often assumes she knows, how she bowls the world over. bowls me over, brushes me off, shuts me down. and they're both the same: bow down, bitch, and ask permission to microwave your fajita. the weeds drove her crazy, but stepping on the tomato was the last straw, just as i drive her crazy and the snapping of the sprinkler head was the last straw.