The Testosterone Zone

By A.E. Bayne

Here I sit, listening to the cacophony of four sugar-hyped, video game-pumped, extremely excited fourteen-year-old boys who are sprawled about the living room. The sound is music to my ears. You see, my son turned fourteen on Thursday and this is exactly what he wanted to do for his birthday: hang with his buds. We made the foray to Gamepad earlier in the day where the boys convereged and played the age-old game of cops and robbers, now modernized in the form of Halo Wars with rocket launchers and semi-automatic weapons. In this place that I have dubbed The Testosterone Zone, they killed each other in competition for two hours and bonded over bloody massacres.

X has always had friends in school. He has always mentioned them at home and has invited them for birthday parties each year. However, he’s never consistently travelled outside of our home to hang out with friends. In fact, I used to worry about him in elementary school because he didn’t play with kids during recess, not even his so-called friends. Every time I would question him about it, he would say that he liked hanging by himself because he didn’t enjoy running around or playing sports with the other boys. I was afraid it would make him the target of a bully, but he made it through unscathed (to my knowledge). As close as he and I are as parent and child, there are some things that he won’t discuss, his aloofness and insecurity with peers being one of them. To his credit, he is fairly feisty when confronted, so I doubt he would let a bully’s comment go without reply.

When he entered middle school, he chose the orchestra (cello, and later bass) as his creative outlet. He joined the LEGO League, the school newspaper, and the science club. He started meeting a group of boys with whom he had things in common, and I started hearing more conversations at home about cafeteria banter. Over these past three years, names have come and gone, some hanging on with the true tenacity that it takes to make a friendship. A Taylor has stayed, and a Mitchell, a Kevin and a Reid and a Zach as well. X has attended parties more frequently, and has started texting consistently with this group of friends. I’ve met them, and they seem like really kind, polite kids. Some have girlfriends and talk about cars and older siblings; others, like X, just tease about the girlfriends and ask questions about the cars and siblings. The one commonality: they love to play video games. When they play the games, everything else falls away and they are just kids, just a bunch of buds hanging out.

Here is where I find myself at the crossroads of our journey. Here is the point where I am trying (really trying) to cut the rope so that it begins to fray; the single strings that form it are popping like those mooring a titanic ship just pulling to cruise toward the horizon, waves and all. I can feel the tension building, and I know the line was not constructed to hold forever; thankfully, I know that the dock will be here long after the ship has sailed.

Undecided

By A.E. Bayne

Marriage was not good for me, but it was good
sometimes
a woman has guilty pleasures in a marriage.

I wrapped myself in a shy shadow,
and folded those traits that made me vibrant
neatly into the corners of my heart.

His heart contracted around its own trappings and talents,
so I kept my own neatly packed away,
at times rifling through that treasured chest
to pull one out and dazzle my friends.

They marked me, an acid kiss.

And so I lived with my husband and child
wondering if I really wanted this.
Would I be selfish if I admitted
that being one half of anything was not part of my reality?

And if I decided that I only wanted a child,
who would be the first to condemn me for not
providing an appropriate role model,
providing an appropriate home model,
providing an appropriate name?

(The President of the United States with his agenda; my parents with their concern; my family with their scrutiny; people on the street with disdain; the media with statistics on single parent households; my liberal best friend with a stray, bone-honest comment)

And if I had chosen to have no children would I have heard
for the rest of my reproductive years
about the joy, the elation of having a child,
the fulfillment of bearing from my womb,
the "When are you going to..." or
"So, have you thought about..." or
"Not much time left, you’re not getting any younger, you know..."

And if I had never wanted to marry at all,
decided that having a partner, a family, was not for me,
would I be judged a cold, hard fish of a woman;
an emotional recluse; a wretch?
Would people begin to wonder,
"Who would want her"
and would I care if they did?

Would the shrink question my sanity if I did not
want to share my life, my talents, my Self,
if I wanted only to rip open the corners of my heart
and use that which I was born with in a manner to which I saw fit.

Ah, the Pleasures of Paris

By A.E. Bayne

The French flayed fix
I discovered in the city of sticks,
an artist’s complex science.
Off the street, another well-known venue.
Cafés and brasseries out-lit
their humming and creative aesthetics.
These I discovered in the newest of centers,
Across blackboards and boulevards.
Decent, often, and more than a metropolis,
eventually original, and anciently turned out.