There are no more men.
They are monsters now.
There are no more warriors,
no more knights in shining armor standing by.
There are no more bodyguards
or gentlemen
or lovers.
There are no more men of God
or mentors
or leaders.
There is no one to open the door
or carry the bags
or lift the load.
There is no one to smile at
from across the room,
no best man or groom,
no one to love you.
There are no more men.
They are monsters now.
They grab and take
and trample your heart.
They dismiss and avoid
and refuse to talk,
much less listen.
They throw you out
and kick you when you are down.
There are no more men.
They are monsters now.
There is no one to hold,
no one to have,
no one to trust
or grow old with.
There is no one to make memories with
or remember the old times.
There is no one
to bare your soul and body to.
All the men died.
All of them.
They ate themselves to death
on the souls of the women.
They were killed on the battlefield
fighting to sit on top of the mountain.
They left the women
and the babies
to fend for themselves.
The men ran away
to conquer the world.
They ran away
to find something better.
They ran away
because they couldn’t bear
to love another ounce.
Only self-preservation.
Dominance.
Power.
They stopped being men
and became bloodthirsty creatures
that roamed through the night
until they killed their own hearts.
They stopped being men
and stopped being there.
They stopped being fathers
and pastors
and preachers.
They stopped spending time
and they stopped giving flowers.
They stopped working hard
and they stopped having valor.
The men ceased to exist.
They transformed.
They abandoned.
They stopped giving life
and they started taking it.
And the women were left
to fend for themselves,
forced to be strong
and carry it all.
Only monsters to fight
and monsters to fear.
The weight of the world
fell on their shoulders
with no fathers
or brothers
or husbands
or lovers.
Only monsters
who hate them
and their careers.
Monsters who stick their claws
in their hearts
and grab and rip the life
out of their chests.
These women,
these mothers
who carry it all,
just trying to survive
and feed their little ones.
They sit in their blood,
and they sit in their pain,
and they sit in the mess
of the world men have made.
They hold their dead babies
and all their dead dreams,
and they sit
and they hold space
for nothing but screams.
They sit in their beauty,
which now men abhor.
They sit in the classrooms
and empty town halls.
They sit in the stillness.
They sit in the light.
They sit in the deepest,
darkest of nights.
They wake in the morning.
The monsters are gone.
They are all alone
with their silence,
their thoughts,
and their pain.
Until one day
they realize
they are all that they have.
No one is coming to save them.
No one is coming to love them.
They are all that they have.
The monsters stop by on occasion
to taunt them
and tell them
how unwanted they are.
The monsters still hate.
They still try to destroy.
But the women have learned now
to stand firm,
how to be the men
they always needed,
how to provide
and even make life.
They do it alone,
not because that is what they wanted,
but because life itself
is worth living.
It is worth blocking the monsters.
It is worth fighting the fight.
It is worth giving life
and raising boys
to be men
and not monsters.
Women are the only hope
for men to exist again.
We must get out of bed
and work
and love ourselves
and take out the trash
and keep the peace
and protect each other
and fight the monsters.
God has trusted the women
to be men
when there are no more men,
only monsters
and mothers.
Rachael Kathleen Hartman 