this is the place i’ve been waiting for the place with no mothers my video games care only about beef jerky tough fatherhood firewood fatherhood the god of war on a tiny boat hades at his desk waiting for me to fail wanting the

validation i raise my bow for him i climb ice mountains stung by lava burned by skeletons and zombies and ghosts ugh there she is across the forest carrying her sword like a burden my mother no your mother no

sorry it’s freya in the video game god of war poor mother the mine with no gold always at the bottom of the joke never on the ice boat in the clear water next to the great mountain forcing forward like my daddy freya

pushes like my mother she made mistakes with her invincible baby but i’m alive i realize i let the bow pierce my heel and i keep walking in heels to be more like her putting on lipstick in the mirror as a baby i crumpled paper

towels in my shirt the one with some design the rhinestone flower or the rose print i thought i could blossom for the world of fathers he wanted to escape my mother and i just wanted a hug from a warm woman disappearing

in his smoke she has my dark eyes and doesn’t understand them shadows on the edges under the lashes in her house in the suburbs i see how it ends in the video game nyx is night a beautiful purple blanket and zagreus

needs his dad i wasn’t raised to play this way i’m meant to play mother cooking in my plastic kitchen cherry pie and printed hamburgers nibbling the ridges chewing my doll’s plastic hand not rejecting her beauty but consuming callouses and sleepless

nights i bit my mother on the arm until it made a ring of spots and she yanked my ear until i cried for her with my stuffed animals i acted out her love kissing their foreheads when they were sick holding them in my fat little arms in bed i remember falling out and screaming take my temperature mama i don't want to keep doing this