ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Amy Watkins lives in Orlando, Florida, with her husband and daughter and a maniacal ginger cat. She is the author of the chapbook Milk & Water (Yellow Flag Press) and the art editor for Animal: A Beast of a Literary Magazine.
Poets Resist
Edited by Kolleen Carney Hoepfner
May 11, 2018
Edited by Kolleen Carney Hoepfner
May 11, 2018
Boys Will Be
All the boys in ‘80s movies think violence equals love.
Even the sensitive ones throw beer bottles, fight the ex
reluctantly, prove their love with fists. In the movies,
chicks dig scars and danger, fast cars and brooding,
a tragic backstory and single tear. An accident will do,
if it’s romantic and brutal, if the scars are beautiful.
My mother taught me that a good woman could love
through anything. I thought violence could be righteous,
an extremity of emotion expressed in the strange
grammar of masculinity. Every man I knew
was a breakdown waiting to happen. Every man I knew
felt so much anger and hurt and had no place to put it,
no safe place in all the world but the arms of the woman
who loved him. I must have said, “Boys will be boys,” or,
“Men will be boys,” or, “All the mass shooters think
violence is love.” Once, a boy I loved pushed me, pinned me.
I’m ashamed to say that’s what it took for me to see
our delusions, all our dangerous scars. He was stronger
than I was, and I wondered how much violence it would take
for him to prove it, if I could call it an accident, if I could
love him after those few endless seconds, like a movie girl.
Poets Resist is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
