Dear Toilet Scene, and: I took the gun from my mother’s hand

Dear Toilet Scene,

Thank you for adding that glint of grit the movie needs. An avant-garde way to make the audience know this movie is the real thing. That it’s willing to go to any corner, down any street. Unzip itself for relief. The scene that shows us all how little the female lead cares for veils of decorum. Panties pulled low— women, in real life, never pee—her motivation flows upon the water’s still face, its mouth happy to receive.

Nothing advances plotlines like the destruction of porcelain bowls by drunk-assed decisions to shit with the door open. Nothing shows how far this character’s grown beyond sexist expectations of having it all—job! babies! bouncily quaffed hair! Such authenticity. That toilet will make her a star.

I took the gun from my mother’s hand

and pointed it toward the woods like she told me to I pointed it straight and never knew what kind of gun it was I aimed at the tree she told me to pretend was a stranger at the door was a man who wanted to take me into the woods an ex who wanted me to take back my rejection of him by making me take it back

I pointed the gun my mother loaded before she told me to place one hand under the butt   for support look down the snub nose look at the erect sight     look down at my chosen assailant see the porous bark see the assault of textures see the ripples of gray valleys of unwanted advances     imagine the way you want him to die   because she was afraid for me because she said I needed to know how to defend myself stand and take aim while she stood proudly behind because I did everything she told me to and I did it correctly     it was her gun from her nightstand my mother placed a gun in my hand my mother said look into the woods and see everything that could/might/will probably try shoot and afterward laugh because if the first shot doesn’t kill him she said laugh because that will scare him make him pause then shoot again shoot that motherfucker again aim for heart or the balls   or the head where there’s a mouth so much talking at you into you because it’s a privilege to take whatever he is giving a city in his mouth your steady hand flatten that city this gun this metal can reduce every inch of him take aim my mother said find a tree in the woods imagine what could happen