What Can I Say

    I feel paralyzed, face beyond statue stoic. I wish my hands would creep up to dry her cheeks wipe aways tears of other disappointments, previous abandonments, everything I couldn't prevent, and my failures mindreading 101 ans 202, but these hands remain on my jeans clenching into fists, relaxing only to recreate the gesture. How did I get here again?

    I remember warm summer night intoxicated off feminine wiles and giggles. Felt too good to have a girlfriend, all eyes on us in the club, shopping, and borrowing clothes. She never spit either, in all my time insulated by hyper-masculinity, I never grown accustomed to the spitting. Five tracks into her mix cd and nothing but dope female artists and the fellas gripe at the third in a row. So I told her I loved, asked her to pull over to negotiate it's acceptance because it came with a price. I still hold onto some samurai, knights of the round table, by gone era code. My earliest memories are ride or die, blood in blood out, is you wit me or what, I've never left anyone behind, never broken a heart. I haven't the gradient lenses that allow me to see the shades of difference in familial love, romantic love, platonic love, it's all the same to me it just has to last. I offer no lover grander gestures than I offer friends, which could be why I don't maintain lovers, but later for that. Nigga raised and nigga trained, it'd surprise you to know how long it took me to get the dude out of my walk, but I never had a mother been looking for one in slumber parties, movies, & BFFs, someone to scratch my head when I am ailing. All goes well til they find out my dirt little secret, and drop me cold, completely and utterly heartbroken. I'm too grown for lying in bed all fucked in the head, which nobody understands if it wasn't your lover, I've gotten over as much as I can of my abandonment issues , and I'm not shooting for any records of how many I can handle.
     Before she can get too far into wondering what sort of crime I'm about to make her accessory to after the fact, with as serious a face my silly ass can muster, I don't speak uterine. No seriously all that estrogen filled shit is Klingon to me and what I do understand, is fire ant irritatingly bugnuts to me. So when you get to asking the ovarian questions you don't want answers to, when you want me to cosign on some delusional shit like dudes really the one, or you look better than her, but she's still the one he's screwing, you don't want to change anything about the situation you're complaining about, you like the problem because it affords the opportunity to vent, I really won't have the right answers. It seems crazy you won't believe but remember what I say for when the moment comes, you'll get mad, passive aggressive, I'll ask you what's the matter repeatedly you will repeatedly tell me nothing. You'll start throwing little slings & arrows cause you're hurt and you mistake my coolness for being cool, and you won't believe me when I tell how bad it stings. You won't believe me cause you'll be crying and I won't cause I don't. My eyes well up & don't spill listening to Otis Redding, Sam Cooke & some occasional gospel, country, or opera, other than that somebody pretty much has to die. Even after meeting my family and seeing how they act, you'll think I'm hiding my feelings or some Oprah nonsense and you won't get that when my poker face appears, I'm crying as hard as you in a more mascara friendly manner. I'll remind you just cause you can't see it don't mean it don't hurt, this will probably only piss you off more, like I'm mocking you, so you'll shoot out more venomous barbs, til one goes way too deep and you'll see a quick flash of a face I never meant for you. I'll revert back to poker face, quickly enough to make you feel safe enough to throw out something stupid like "what are you going to do hit me". I'll merely raise my eyebrows to let you know the thought had crossed my mind, and finally find my regular voice lost in a sea of me begging: let's talk about this, that's not fair, can you please stop using these exaggerations, are you sure I did all that, so it's all my fault, how was I supposed to know, you never said anything, how was I supposed to know, you didn't tell me, how was I supposed to know, you could've talked to me while all of this was building, now how could I have known that.
    Then I'll say something to the effect of we aren't getting anywhere we're just going back and forth give me some time to process and we can regroup, but this is just getting ugly. You'll keep going, I'll say please stop, ouch low blow, seriously that's how you feel, for real just knock it off for now, until you finally get far enough that I get this rush of words something like OHYOUGOTMEFUCKEDUPBITCHIFYOUTHINK and the worst shit I could think to say to you that'd probably have you suicidal cause I won every dozens, signifying, roasting battle. I'll remember my grandmother and what it feels like when she uses that sword of tongue and you wish she'd only have aimed truer and been done with you. I remember how words from ten, fifteen, twenty years ago can keep me up late, though I know I'm grown I can handle it now, and they just won't fall from my mouth. So I leave the room, for just a second, heavily consider fist to walls, then come back and announce this conversation is done. You'll probably start to say something else til I thunder, not very loudly, but you don't get to be completely stoic and tearless under emotional duress without developing a thunderously stern voice, NOT ANOTHER FUCKING WORD.
    I'll send some softer text messages, process what might have been right out of what you were saying,  and try to have the new and improved healthier version of that conversation, while battling all the thoughts of letting your low blowing, selfish, passive aggressive ass do you, way away from me. I'll come back all nice and malleable because of the Semper Fi never leave anyone behind nonsense I'm still holding onto. It won't matter it'll be too late because you saw the tip of the iceberg of the temper, you know that I definitely have unapologetically hit girls, and despite full knowledge that those circumstances were drastically different you won't care, it's mostly that shadows of whatever monsters that made you that have you so shook anyway. So you'll quietly slip out the door and make new BFFs because you're a girl and that's what you all do. I won't cause I don't understand mammary, so I'll be shopping alone, and getting pissed off and wannabe weepy, two years later every time I hear Destiny's Child singing Girl. 

      She said she loved me too, promised none of that would be an issue, it was all good, we continue driving, and yo is this mix cd all female, this might be heaven. That was then and now here I am sitting between snipey little barbs and if you don't know that you must not understand me at all. I feel fucking handcuffed by logic and reason. I can't feel my heart I don't know if it's beating slow or fast, there's just pain radiating in my just and I wish I could cry and tell her, I told you this would happen and you promised, YOU PROMISED. Temper's rising, stoic cold stonewashing over my face, what can I say to keep it down,what can i say to keep it down, what can I say to keep your love around me? She's going in about how I'm just like a nigga, I should just be a dude. I'm wondering what the fuck possible purpose this shit could serve but to hurt me or piss me off, and it kinda hits me. It's like a tap at first then it kinda slaps me upside the back of my head. Dawg I am a grown ass woman. I dance all night in stilettos, and no amount of alcohol prevents me from walking like the fiercest drag queens and supermodels, my makeup game would make you blush, and I can still run to the store unshowered with a messy ponytail in sweats and feel beautiful. I'm not pulling tomboy apologies and martying myself for slumber parties and secrets anymore, and i don't have to cry to prove I'm in pain. I'm done here. Almost as quickly as this wave of resolve washes in it ebbs away, what if she needs me, I've invested too much to let it go.

What can I say to keep it down, what can I say to keep your love around?
     Not a damn thing, no really not a damn thing. Time to move on.