Fuck You Very Much

I've been waiting very patiently for the past six months. Standing very calmly while you all jostle for your positions on top of me. You fight for the choicest spot to inject your viscous wrath and bicker and fight over who has the right to harvest the most tender bits of me. My husband was the most patient. Nineteen years of laying in wait upon my back like a monkey I just can't quit. He slowly ransomed his favorite parts; my naivete, my optimism, my trust. He plastered up the holes with a crumbling concoction of cynicism, bitterness, and vulnerability. Then came my mother, slashing with nails of guilt and self doubt. Gnashing with teeth of fire and jealousy. She replaced her stolen bits with, "My you've gained a bit of weight, haven't you?"

My son took my power, my ability to rule the home and mete out punishment and replaced it with jeers and rolls of eyes. He knew my grasping fingers had become, at that point, merely an illusion I showed the world. My sharp tongue was wet ash. Next, my brother took whatever familial ties I had left and, licked his lips and tasting tender tears gave me back only half truths. I choked on his fear of me.

Now you fall in line, harvesting heart like so many wasted minutes waiting for you to call, like counting so many empty inboxes. I know you can't help but hate me just as you love what I represent, the freedom to love as you would without all of your own beloveds stealing juicy bits from your own trembling form. You don't have the strength left to love me and hold yourself together, a sad fatherly form of duct tape and medical gauze.

And all the rest of you offer only empty platitudes, so afraid that my fear, my anger, my sorrow is contagious, stretching from me to you like so much warm, discarded bubblegum.

There's nothing left for you to claim from me. I am become an empty shell of cardboard and outdated dreams. You have created a golum of your greed and fear and tears and now I stumble from one of you to another, clumsily grasping for acceptance. Nails raking for support. Teeth gnawing for unconditional love.

Harvesting the juiciest little bits of you to feed my empty soul.