play and violence

answering the age-old question

“What is sex?” I ask my mother. It was during the part of life where every other day felt like happening upon a new world. My bones ached once a month as time’s tight grip fastened on my rectangular and bony wrists and stretched me out. The rapid growth of my muscles forced me into awareness of my physical form. And my spirit strayed less and less in my sleep as I cemented into myself, bound like a prisoner to my own psyche. My skeleton was one big tooth, it seemed. And it ached and ached, surely bound to fall out one day, along with all the rest. It would fall out and leave behind a bloody, gummy hole of which you could peer down deep inside. Of which you could blow cold air into, freezing those vulnerable little nerves into silence. The holes in my mouth were the expression of pure emptiness. I understood the necessity of their filling. And they would; white bone would resurrect and stuff itself in, ignorant of the discomfort its cramming caused to everything else. Holes are meant to be filled, my mouth told my mind.

“What is sex?” I ask my mother. It was during the part of life where each pillar of one’s identity stemmed from a regurgitation. I gobbled up the pre-chewed words and ideas that were spat into my mouth because I was a starving little bird and the world was my mother. The more I ate, the more I knew. But the more I knew, the more confusing everything was. Self, as I knew it, Myself, as I knew me, was what I saw in my environment’s shimmering reflective pool. I am This. I would think. And how exciting it is to be This Thing that I am. Every label collected on my sticky mind. If I loved it, it was framed in gold, regarded from every angle, and recited as gospel. If I hated it, it was recited all the same, bounced off of every mirrored wall of my surroundings until its repetition resounded, ringing true or false. You are anything I declare you are, the world told my mind.

“What is sex?” I ask my mother. It was during the part of life where play often caressed violence. These moments felt as inevitable as the burning when being tickled becomes painful. Not every game was played for fun. Many were used to establish power. And some games found their end with me pushed to my knees in the gravel, several hands digging into my shoulders, and ten expressionless boys huddled around looking and looking. Some games, like this one, had never found their end before but rather had dissipated lightly, their energy redirecting to a new layer of the atmosphere without ever striking. But games like this one showed me what it meant to be caught. And what the chase truly signified. Play and violence perhaps lick at the pleasure of complete freedom. Beyond adultified boundaries, grassy patches are endless prairies, and dome-ish play structures are dark, hidden caves. Inside them, though, the sky still shone through. Metal bars webbed into the clouds, and I watched them from the pointy bed of bark chips I was pinned to. Two little hands pressed weight onto my forehead. Twenty more little fingers wound tightly into mine like sharp keys and locked me into the ground. Two little knees kept my ankles from dancing. And the sky shone through. Held on all sides, time extended my body, and the years rapidly passed. The vast holes in my gums reunited with their skeletons, and my bones grew and grew. He’s going to come and have sex with you, the little boys told my mind.

Well, he didn’t, as we surely all went home with the same parroted question on our tongues: “What is sex?”. Through the various explanations or denials we all received about this mommy, that daddy, this penis, that vagina, this hole, this penis, this daddy, that mommy, this hole, this hole, this hole, this hole, this hole, this hole, this hole, that daddy, a truer definition shone through the metal play structure’s bars. It wasn’t our mothers, fathers, brothers, or friends who vomited food into our snapping beaks. No, it wasn’t in the words where we found our answer. It was in the silence of it all, in the whispering wind, the shifting gravel, the squeezing grips, it was there we heard play and violence caress. They kissed lightly, then harder. They moaned and maneuvered. Isn’t it simple? It’s power. It’s the wielder and the wielded. It’s play and it’s violence.