and “Use your knife and fork to eat, not your hands”.
Having nothing to compare it to,
I thought this all seemed reasonable enough,
as long as I got to slug my little brother once in a while.
“And don’t you hit your little brother”, she said.
Fine, then.
I tried to keep my cowlick down
mud off the floor
handprints off the wall
shirt tucked in
milk out of my nose
and my feet from dragging when riding my bike.
Things went along like this for years,
me trying to follow all the rules
until one day
I saw the picture,
I’m sure Charles Darwin would have been proud of it,
of a naked man
walking on front of a naked brute
walking in front of a naked beast
all walking in front of a knuckles-on-the-ground ape.
The emergence of man.
I learned I was a primate.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
This changed everything.
Everything.
All of a sudden it was all right
to belch
to scratch
to howl
to run into the corner with the ice cream.
I didn’t have to share,
didn’t have to stand in line.
When I got full,
I could smear the spaghetti on the wall
lay on my back
and put my feet up in the air.
Life gets better
once you find out you’re an ape.