Diminishing Love
https://poems.culturing.net/2026/09/15/diminishing-love/
Shall I fall back into childhood
just to remember how it feels, just to taste
the sweet milk of the breast of a woman
who can do no wrong? Of course
there is no such woman, not even the literal mother,
but she dwells in the imagination
awaiting projection and incarnation. Woe upon us!
I cannot escape her but will not embrace her either.
No less than my manhood is at stake.
Was there ever a mother, or is she imagined only,
a veil disguising a secret self-interest with cruel implications?
How little she knows! And how much she yearns
to devour, to soften, to smooth the rough edges
and make a man safe for the nursery, where he can never belong.
He has war in him, always, forever, unless
he succumbs to her torment, the tempting softness of diminishing love.
She will never stop trying, for try as she might
she destroys and then hates her prey. It's a fact
that some women use love to abuse, and all will
when they feel under siege. I will arm myself,
ready to battle with words and to pull away
when the need arrives. I will not be made small,
not for love or any other compensatory hope.
