Gods in Suburbia: Ares at Play

My peace gives birth to violence:

cocooned in your small frame—

a pink-cheeked cherub with flaxen hair and dimpled palms,

a beloved belly, endearing pearls of toes,

masquerading as a child—

lives the violence of generations.

Millennia of warriors, hunters, torturers, marauders,

pillagers, violators, destroyers of villages.

The rage of your ancestors lives on in you,

although it has been tamed in your petite form,

suburbanized,

feminized,

clipped and trimmed,

pruned and molded into respectable forms.

But protrudes in abrupt, anachronistic bursts:

the satisfaction of squishing the ant with your rubbery sole,

decapitating the green beetle,

a compulsion to transform sticks into weapons,

the thirsty pursuit of the ball,

your fascination with movement and speed,

your need to wrestle your brother in a tangle of arms and knees,

to dominate the opponent,

an obsession with blood, with carnage and death.

The anger of your grandfathers

festers and smolders—

their sins flow in your blood,

their acts of terror reside in your bones.

You are at the mercy of your instincts,

which we pray will be buried deep,

shamed and shunned,

but are always present,

seeds waiting to sprout

when the threat arrives,

when chaos emerges once more,

when the world falls to pieces.