Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Mike Hentges Jan 2018
We stand in line for a delayed plane airport stale oxygen recycled through our mouths. This is work.
“It’s gonna be fun to watch.”
We’re popcorn on the sidelines. Your sorrow is our television and soon we will fly to vegas. Because our white ***** make us bulletproof. Make us able to say things like “It’s gonna be fun to watch.” Instead of saying things like “I’m scared.” And “I can’t believe this is happening.”
The conversation continues. This is work.
“Those females sure do have a way about them don’t they?”
I wonder myself a coward. Does the upstart stand over the 60 year old? He’s a short man.
“Did you see that one?”
They’re talking about *****.
“Oh how could I miss it? He’s helping me find my wife, you know?”
What is the proper response to a sexist wink? I awkwardly smile. This is work.
Plane boards.
Takeoff.
Landing.
Slot machines in the airports.
Lights.
Smoke.
Decadence. I’ve never been. The neon hits me like stargazing. Walking alone seems to be more palpable to my tastes than company. There’s strippers on the sidewalk. One tries to spank me. When you walk back to your Paris themed hotel at 2 in the morning, everyone wants you to go to the *******. My hotel room is spacious. ******* is odd when you’re surrounded by ***.

Time rolls into the work event I’m in Vegas for, like limousines and unenthusiastic drummers strapped to the backs of moving advertisements. It’s a social event. I’m supposed to play nice with my customers. Make them happy so they give me more money. I’m paraphrasing.
One of my customers is talking to one of his customers. The guy is around 85. He notes on how young I look. Says that I can use this to my advantage with the ladies. Oh sorry. I’m paraphrasing again. What he actually said was:
“Never get married. When I was 40 I caught ***** like you wouldn’t believe. I’d find a 23 year old and toss her away for someone younger.”
Time rolls into overpriced drinks walking hand in hand with gambling and stories of conquest
Testosterone
Unrest
Like champions of our pants we are gladiators in the absence of romance. The game of one-up-man-ship, each story told and stacked like the cards slapping down on the tables around us.

“There was a 99.9% chance I was going to bang this chick. She like, had her hand on my leg. I had my arm around her. And I was the hero of the night because I had gotten a bachelorette party over.”
“Oh yeah, she’s hot.” “ Your wife is ******* standing right there, dude.”
“You know if things are wrong at the house cause my wife keeps me up aaaaalllll night. Talk talk talk talk.”
He moves his hands like lobster claws to mimic his wife’s mouth.  I feel my awkward smile crack across my face again. I pay $10 for a watered down drink. I talk to a girl who doesn’t want to talk to me. She leaves.
“You strike out or something?”
When you walk back to your Paris themed hotel at 4 in the morning, everyone wants to ******* in exchange for your wallet.

“Where are you going? You ever had black *****?”

My hotel room is spacious.
It’s odd to feel alone when company can be paid for. And as I lie naked in my bed I wonder what it would be like to have *** with a *******. I feel failure creeping at the floor, climbing the sheets that tell me I’m in the city of sin, so why am I not sinning?
Winning.
“You strike out or something?”

As men we are taught to be strong and that we don’t need anyone
Wolves
This is work
(but I must have missed the ******* lesson)

Because it seems I need someone. More than the soft cheek kiss of innocence lost. I want the feeling of seeing old people hold hands. The hard glare of the no judgement mirror. It’s like *** over *******, but there is silence in the nothing and if you listen closely you can hear the screaming drool between each ***** syllable. I’m tired of – **** it.
Let’s keep this a secret. Don’t want my man card revoked.
Have you ever felt like you could die and no one would give a ****?
A hangover morning pours overpriced coffee into our stale eyes. It seems the strength has waned
Tunes have changed
And the act is becoming hard to keep up. If you look at the corners of their eyes you can see they miss their wives and warn of men like themselves to their daughters.
But that doesn’t make for good stories, does it?
“I’m ready to leave”
“I can’t say I’m a fan of Vegas”
“I hate this town.”
Even wolves travel in packs and I wonder if some consider the proper response to a sexist wink to be an awkward story.
A company too exhausted, from dripping money and LED seduction to wonder if society knows the size of all our tiny penises.
“I’m tired of people assuming that just because I make a decent amount of money that I’m a republican.”
What?
“Oh I hate Trump. He’s a monster.”
We’re getting somewhere.
“You ever motorboated *******?”
Aaaaaaaaaaaand we’re back.
The voice Jan 2018
She is clothed with majesty
She walks on water, she is gentle
She is sensitive and delicate to touch
She is a woman, what did you expect?
From a woman

When you saw her cry, it made sense,
Because she was sensitive
When she washed the dishes, you thought
“That’s her place!”
When she stood up and said something thoughtful
You cleaned your ears to make sure you heard right

She is a delicate woman, a sensitive one
Aren’t all women? Aren’t all human beings?
Is everyone just a little delicate and sensitive?
No! Men are strong and driven and ‘manly’.

So when a woman was strong and driven,
She was ‘manly’, wasn’t she?
When a woman chose school over getting married,
And having kids,
She wasn’t woman enough! Was she?

She hears the voices, she felt ashamed,
So she became the woman you said she should be
But when her little girl asked?
She did not know what to say!

You are clothed with majesty,
You walk on water, you are gentle
You are sensitive and delicate to touch
You are a woman.

And when her little girl asked about school,
She remembered, someone told her
“Your place is at home with the kids, waiting
Waiting for your husband, not at school”

You are a woman, embrace it
You are intelligent, so use that
You are a woman, you do whatever you want to do
Go to school, go to college, graduate, and be successful

He can wait, kids can wait,
Staying at home doesn’t have to be your only choice!
Thanks mom!
Francie Lynch Jan 2018
The blockbuster sequel
To The Handmaid's Tale,
Will star one lonely,
But very safe male,
In,
The Handjobber's Tale.
No LGBTQ?,
No human, animal, child, politician, religious person, flora, fauna, fish, bird or insect will be in this movie,
But him.
Margaret Atwood: *The Handmaid's Tale.*
Two political leaders in Canada just stepped down due to ****** allegations.
Now that I think of it, I was sexually assaulted... twice... once as a student and once as a teacher. In fact, almost everyone I talk to now can relate an incident that is questionable. I'll bet this has been going on for ten thousand years. I believe time is up.
Francie Lynch Jan 2018
We're misrepresented
(We male Caucasians),
Who don't indulge
In bigotry.
Poor "Us."
Francie Lynch Jan 2018
Make Hollywood Great Again.
It's the next new slogan, sans the men.
It'll be like Jolly Olde England,
The Elizabethan style, if you get what I mean!
Inverse women bejewelled in cod pieces
Preying on the men.
Not in an English accent, but more American:
******** won't mean the same;
Cuckold won't make sense,
But all the phenomenal men we know
Will need to share the pants.
Yikes. Those Golden Globe Awards speeches were powerful, eh? There's a shift in power occurring, and I hope the women handle it better.
Francie Lynch Jan 2018
Our yesterdays are foreign shores,
With unusual customs.
Among us are worm-holers,
Using foreign words
Like Whitey, ******, *****, Indian.
Archaic phrases,
A woman's place...
A child should...
Are you a man...

Our boundaries have shifted.
Isolationism, provincialism, racism,
All derogatory isms
Are placed in a time capsule,
Not to be opened by this civilization,
This new country for ex-pats.
man once said to woman:
you fight like a girl
and she replied:
and you fight like a man
and he said:
that is because i am one
and she said:
exactly
and he looked confused
and she said:
i fight like a girl because i am one
Emily Miller Dec 2017
I will not be afraid,
in dark alleys
or empty parking lots.
I will not be afraid,
when the predatory glances
grow furtive
and purposeful.
I'm not a girl,
I'm a woman,
and I don't smile,
I glow.
Everything about me,
from the shine of my hair,
to the dirt on the bottom of my heels
is regal from the moment it touches me.
Because I'm a queen,
and I was born to reign.
The alleys are my red carpet,
theatre seats are my throne.
Nothing that I set eyes on is allowed to alarm me.
Inside of me,
I carry a miracle,
an ability beyond the comprehension
of the opposite ***,
and outside of me,
I am disguised as a mere mortal.
I'm capable of going to battle
with the wildness and ferocity of a pride of lions,
and returning home to grace my loved ones with a softness that is so tender
so unconditional,
that it could **** with it's heart-aching gentleness.
I'm capable of whatever I wish,
creating life,
or taking it.
I'm capable of building civilizations
and destroying them.
I am a queen.
Whether I am a queen in a smart suit and stilettos,
or a queen in sneakers and sweats,
I'm a queen.
So fear me,
love me,
and be warned-
I refuse to bow to the evil that has been committed against my kind before.
I refuse to bow to the terror.
I refuse to bow at all.
I'm a queen.
I'm a **** queen.
Scarlet McCall Dec 2017
I am Ma’am.
Ma’am I am.
And if I order
green eggs and ham
at the café,
you can say,
“We don’t serve that here,
Ma’am.”

Miss, I’m not.
I am not Miss.
That appellation
is a dis.
Take a look,
and you’ll see this:
I’m 53, not 18.
I may be older than I seem,
but my days of girlhood are long gone.
And to call me “Miss” would just be wrong.
So call me “Ma’am;” it’s what I am.
You might think “Miss” is hip or flip,
but if you call me that there’ll be no tip.
Unbelievably at a restaurant a waiter called my 81-year-old mother "Miss." It's disrespectful.
Alzet Weideman Nov 2017
There is a leak in my heart where you shoved your coarse fingers in so impertinently.
I exposed my soul for you, revealed my naked body for you to see,
but you watched and all you really saw were the parts that aroused your virility.

I gave you an ultimatum, but, to you, the rest of me was like the speed fines that you were never going to pay.
You devoured my dreams with a mouthful of empty promises and destroyed them,
now you're an epitome manliness...

and I?
A scarecrow in the clean eyes of anyone capable of accepting all my peculiarities.

You say that I left you,
but here I sit on the sidewalk, desolated.
A prose about my first time - careless and unkind.
The lover was a heroic boy for taking my virginity. I was regarded as a promiscuous girl, unworthy of the love of any other man due to my 'transgression'.

This was four years ago and today I am loved - not only by a wonderful man, but also by myself. For I know that the guilt I felt for many years was caused by unsolicited societal gender norms and sexism; and every last drop has evaporated.

Fight gender norms and sexism!
Do not stand back and watch young ladies hate themselves due to male "masculinity".
Next page