The Fear of Men

I was once the fearful fret

Who learned, not courage,

But regret

And so got caught,

Tangled, in the net

Of a thing considered wise:

The living fear of men.

 

So rampant was this revere,

Of this plague,

This crippling fear,

That many encouraged it

In females of any year

Proclaiming that purity

Was the fruit of the fear of men.

 

Rules and standards ruled the hearts

Of multitudes of women

Told to “be smart”.

As though intelligence

Was the equivalent part

Of a cowardice:

The ever-present fear of men.

 

There were no stories of self-defense

There were no heros

Who spoke of consent

There was no hope

For male friends;

Women were all equally helpless

And shared a fear of men.

 

I am happy to point out

This is written

To tell about

Something quite past tense,

Something I presently live without

Because Christ never said

To live in fear of men.

Motherhood is Forever

She ached, not from the weight,

But from the absence of it.

The gentle waves of breath,

Rising and falling had ceased

And her arms had nothing

To pull in close…

She hung her head in

Unbearable unhappiness,

But it found nothing to kiss-

No soft fuzzy head,

So tiny wrinkly fingers,

No relaxed little hand.

She did not miss what was, but rather,

What could have been.

She was tired from what

She no longer carried

Exhausted from grieving

With no one offering to understand.

Bertha VanAuden

(SSOFPINM- Short Stories of People I’ve Never Met).

SSOFPINM- Bertha VanAuden

            Bertha waddled out to the chair on her front porch, grunting as she pushed herself back into it in order to have the ability to rock back and forth. Denim skirt pushing the dust of the day forward and back as the chair groaned and creaked with the movement. With another barely audible grunt Bertha pulled her prize across her lap. Shiney in some places and dull in others she took the corner of her stained apron and started to scrub at the areas that were less than golden. Always stopping to wave at the passerbyers as though the evening were identical to all the evenings before.

            Farmers and neighbors waved back, smiling from their pickup trucks and bicycles. Birds even seemed to stop and crow, and Bertha would look up from her project to smile and nod in reply. There was no hint of the heaviness in Bertha’s heart as she quietly sang the old hymn “At The Cross”. She clicked her rocking companion into place and hoarsely hummed, “…It was there by faith I received my sight and now I am happy all the day.”

            Except for her haunting scowl, deep and wrinkled the way only an elderly can scowl, one would have thought she was truly happy all the day. She appeared the picture of contentment, hair covering and all. The kind of person who lives out what she believes until her last grateful breath.

            And reader, she was. Even at her final moment she never spoke of regret.

            When Jimmy Bermand’s truck crested over the hill atop which her house sat, she squinted her already squinty eyes and gave her whole self the completeness of a focus which was unmatched. And lifting the shiny barrel up between her shoulder and hands she thought of all the shame he had made her granddaughter suffer. Nobody would believe her if she told, he had reminded her. And he was right, Bertha knew. But regardless of who would believe, Bertha believed her granddaughter, because she had seen the change in her. Little Missy didn’t like being around Jimmy anymore, though he was a long time family friend. Little Missy didn’t speak up about the butterflies she had seen or the frogs she’d been catching. Her little Missy was too embarrassed to talk about asking the Lord for things in their mealtime prayers, and when Bertha’s grandmothering heart had asked why, little Missy had shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don’t think God likes to give things to people who are like me.”

            “And why on earth not?” Bertha had asked, patting back Missy’s curly sandy bangs and kissing her forehead.

           “Cause God just thinks I’m little and weak.”

            No. Nobody would believe a grandma’s suspicion and couple of girlhood prayers, but God didn’t think Little Missy was weak. And He damn knew Bertha wasn’t.

            The shot was unheard but by the wilderness and fields around her home. But it did it’s job.

            Jimmy would be found the next day, with a hole shattering through the passenger side window and a matching one in his skull.

            Bertha left her rocker that evening, after wiping down her tool again with a mumbled, “But the drops of grief can ne’er repay the debt of love you owe…”

Humanity

A poem about struggling with depression, for any fellow believer with the melancholy tendency. From the Unlocked Heart of SayLore- with love, we will always make it!

 

The first steps pitter pattered the morning away

Up and down

The stairs and hallways,

The quick rush of morning hush

Productivity

In the breakfast of silence.

 

Those first steps are my nemesis

I conquer every day break,

Those first bites of cereal are an

Up and down

Of jaw and thought process.

 

Do not mock the hurting heart-

And worse still, yet the more common,

Do not mock the happy heart

For it so easily loses that unstable emotion.

Up and down.

 

“Depression” is such an overused word,

“Anxiety” it’s highly populated cousin,

Up and down.

It’s not a lack of adequate medicine

But a lack of self-respect learned.

 

To the aching, their

Up and down

Seems the work of a weakling,

But those still rejoicing in

Humanity

Are the strongest people I have seen.

 

Biology, the neuro loving,

Psychology, are all too

Up and down;

This is not a question of Why? And Why Not?

But learning the cure for selfish focus,

And choosing to love, when others do not.