Cemented
She cut his tight strings
with a pair of scissors -
a clipping sound
of new adventure,
a wandering
of wondrous things,
just over the hill
but far from home.
Pulled on hiking boots
over her restless feet
walked on down the road
no longer carrying her load
free to be me, she said
before I’m stone cold dead,
encased in strangling dread.
No longer tied forever
or poured in cement,
she’s let off the hook
and absolved of rules.
But what’s that rope
blocking her trail,
anchoring her soul
and tying her
to man she just left?
Elastic rope pulls her back,
snapping against her skin,
to the jail she knew
and tried to escape -
a nightmare of strings
choking her will
into final submission.
Built For This
"You're going to be a great mom," he whispered, pressing his palms to her swollen belly.
She could see his pupils dilate as he touched her, felt the thrum of life within. The physiology of love. That's how you can tell he's in love with you, her friends used to tell her, years ago when falling in love seemed like the most important thing in the world. His pupils get big. You can't fake that.
"You really think so?" she sighed, wincing as she felt a momentary cramp. Did her pupils ever get big like that? Did her body know how to love?
"Of course!" he exclaimed, kissing her just above her navel. "You're built for this."
Built?
"How do you mean?"
He raised his head, and again she saw his eyes, large and darkened. He was built to love her.
"I've been reading," he said, shining with that same hungry delight that always illuminated him when he'd tumbled down some scientific rabbit hole and returned grossly overfed with delicious knowledge. "When a woman gets pregnant, she's flooded with all these intense hormones. They're already preparing you. And think of how you're connected to the baby right now. Your tissues are knitted together, communicating, already building a relationship. It'll change our brains, being parents--did you know that? Babies make all these sounds and scents that our brains pick up and respond to. We're wired for this, and if we're not already prepared, we adapt neurologically. As soon as we have that little baby in our arms, we'll know exactly how to love it and to care for it, just as people have always done, going back to the beginning of time. Our bodies know. Isn't that beautiful?"
"Yeah," she agreed, smiling softly. But it wasn't beautiful. It made her feel enslaved. Was neurological adaptation a reason to be a mother? Were hormones a reason to crave offspring?
She hadn't told him about the panic attack she'd had in the car the other day, after her doctor's appointment. She'd been listening to other mothers in the waiting room chirping away about how motherhood made them feel so beautiful, made them truly understand what love meant. They chuckled over the times they'd been so unsure, the times they'd wondered if they even wanted children at all, but of course, when it's your own child, you inevitably fall in love with it, and blessings abound. That was what They always said.
What if those were lies women told to keep up the appearance of being good mothers? Surely there were some, at least, who regretted everything. Surely there were some who didn't feel drowned in love and blessings... only drowned. It just wasn't socially acceptable to talk about these things, and maybe it never would be. A mother was supposed to be a bastion of endless unconditional love and self-sacrifice. A mother admitting to anyone that she didn't feel that way at all would be a sociopath. At best, she'd be considered sick in the head... at worst, a monster. Most people who were sick in the head were considered monsters by the general public anyway, so it all came down to the same.
You're built for this.
Already she felt on the verge of another panic attack. The full weight of the social and biological pressure was pressing down on every inch of her.
"Are you okay?" he asked, still gazing at her, his wife, the incubator of his offspring, his own personal fertility goddess.
She pushed her mouth into another smile. "Sure. It's just... you know... stupid pregnancy hormones. The doctor said it was normal to feel weepy at random times. And I'm having a wicked craving. I think I need cookie butter, pronto."
"Of course!" he gushed, already getting to his feet. "You polished off the last jar yesterday, didn't you? I'll zip down to Trader Joe's."
"You're a saint," she sighed. And he was a saint. How could she ever compare? He was acing this dad thing already.
Once she'd heard his car leave the driveway, she succumbed to the bout of ugly, heaving sobs that had been digging at her, her face streaming with tears and snot. Were her inner tissues already communicating with the little sea slug inside her that was going to be her baby? Did it already know it existed because she had a short period of "baby fever" after being around her pregnant sister too much? Did it know about hormones, and how they'd made her think she wanted something she had never desired before? Did it know she had been the only girl of all her friends who never understood playing with dolls? Did it know she felt tricked, and trapped?
You're built for this.
Maybe they were built for all of it. She probably didn't even realize the reasons she'd chosen her husband. She'd thought it was everything to do with his personality, his interests, his disposition, and how he treated her. It could have simply been to do with the symmetry of his face or with his pheromones. Were they any different from dogs, pigeons, sea turtles, tapeworms? Everything simply followed biology, as it had been designed to. Someone, or something, was pulling all the strings. Did anything or anyone ever really make a choice?
She wasn't allowed to have regrets now. The baby was coming, as surely as the sun rose and set and the tides drifted in and out. It didn't feel beautiful. Not yet, at least. But if it never did, she would have to keep this secret deep inside herself, incubate it like the dark counterpart of the fetus burgeoning in her womb, and hope that it would never be born.
Losing Troy
Audrey's breath came fast as she and Troy slid around the corner, hiding in the shadows as they went. While she hadn't pushed for Troy's diet, she was definitely grateful he'd gone on one so he wasn't so...chunky and noticeable.
"We're almost there," she breathed, painfully aware of how loud her voice sounded--even as low as it was--in the metal corridor of the ship.
Troy nodded, his eyes slightly wider than usual.
Audrey wasn't sure why she was so nice to Troy--he wasn't cute, he told corny jokes, he wasn't all that stealth or fit, and he wasn't cool. But there was something about him that drew her to him. It bugged her that she didn't know what. Audrey had always been someone to know what was going on, and why. But not this time.
The two of them carefully made their way down the corridor, feeling exposed and knowing that the guards could see them at any moment. Then it would all be over.
Footsteps gradually grew louder as a guard approached the corridor. Audrey instantly leapt up into the air and spread her legs out wide in a split, holding herself suspended between the two walls. Troy awkwardly tried to imitate her move, and Audrey sighed inwardly. There was no way he was going to make it up.
And if he did, there was no way he was going to stay up.
Audrey felt fear make her heart pound faster as she closed her eyes and desperately prayed that the guard would just keep going.
"He's gone; you can drop now," Troy hissed.
Audrey, relieved, let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding as she dropped down onto...Troy?!
"I said you could drop down, but not on me!" Troy complained noisily.
"Shut up!" Audrey snapped, her cheeks flushed. She brushed a lock of deep golden red hair away from her ear and strained to listen for any sound of the guard returning. There wasn't any.
"Flashbacks of my life had finally stopped passing in front of my eyes," Troy grinned much like a lopsided, obese bulldog puppy. A lopsided, chubby, just-off-of-a-diet bulldog puppy she corrected herself.
"Shut up!" she hissed again, to cover up the grin that was trying to break free across her face.
As usual, Troy knew what she was doing. Thankfully, he didn't talk any more. He wasn't stupid. Well, some of the time he wasn't,
The two of them turned at the end of the corridor, and Troy fell into step behind Audrey as she made her way toward the bridge of the damaged ship.
"So how do we plan to get the core of the mainframe again?" Troy questioned.
Audrey sighed. Troy was just trying to make conversation, but he didn't seem to grasp that this wasn't the time for conversation.
Sensing what she was thinking, Troy immediately--but urgently--said, "I honestly don't remember."
"Well, then, too bad. You weren't a part of it to begin with except as a target so that they'll focus on you instead of me," she responded dryly. She almost expected Troy to respond with his usual comment about "Where's the soft side of you?" but it never came. She was almost a little disappointed.
As they turned the corner, Audrey froze, her eyes locking on the small orb in front of her. She knew that if she were to touch it, she would instantly be under the control of whoever controlled the orb.
Of course, they didn't always come shaped like orbs. Sometimes they were watches or blade staffs, sometimes headbands.
"Troy..." she began.
"Cool! It's a light!" Troy's hands closed around the orb, and Audrey's world started spinning as horror clutched at her stomach.
"Troy!" she screamed.
She could hear the guards coming, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was Troy. He was standing there, like a zombie, just staring at her, freaking her out. Tears were falling down her face as she looked desperately behind her to where a dozen soldiers were marching towards her. She couldn't take Troy with her.
No. She'd have to escape without him. It broke her heart, doing this, but she had no choice. In a way, she was like Troy. Someone else dictating her moves, wiping out her options, manipulating her in such a way that she had no choice but to do what It wanted...
There was only one person Audrey knew that would take Troy from her. It had all been a set up--the information, the gear, the blueprint of the ship...she should have guessed that Jolie's sudden kindness was a facade.
Anger boiled up inside of Audrey as she turned and ran.
Troy, I'll come back for you. I promise you that, she vowed. And you, Jolie...I'm coming for you. And I won't have mercy.
Actions
Our actions
They aren't all our own
Not anymore
Sure,
We have the illusion
Of choice
But it's just that-
An illusion
Our actions,
They were planned
We were manipulated
And now
We're trapped
Caught in their strings
The ones that
Our scissors can't seem
To cut
To break
Our actions,
We like to think
We had a choice
But, our actions
Were just effects
Of a previous one
Done with
No choice
As our choices
Are not truly ours
They never have been
They never will be
We are all puppets in the end
In the storm they call us
They watch our every move
Making changes how they see fit
We are all puppets in the end
We can't stop it
They tell us what to do
The wind whip us up
We are all puppets in the end
and there's no changing it
We are all puppets in the end
and we can't stop it
