Since early childhood, long before language and self-actualization, they stood rapt, at attention, ever gazing upward at mother, who was standing, not sitting, on the pedestal where father had placed her against her will.
They did not know how hard it was for her to do her chores and keep the house, mind the children, clean the toilet, scour pots and pans from that elevated place where she did not dare to sit down for even one second in case the world fell apart.
Enraptured, afraid of the faux power they could not begin to comprehend, they kept her there as well, elevated, behind glass, being taught not to touch or to crave affection, attention. So, they turned, as young boys do, to breaking other things, like windows or young girls’ hearts.
Rebelling against authority, especially the hated fathers, abhorring the church, growing beards and mustaches, and longer hair, sometimes drinking and whoring to prove they were worthy still of a loving glance, a tender pat on the head, they took a grave warrior stance.
Becoming loners, bandits, they kept seeking the booty that never belonged to them, never had, never would, not even when ghostly death came in its female guise to suck the last breath from their bodies, and God forbid, taking that unconscious conflict with them into all eternity.
~ LJ