Your Mama Knows

I am fairly certain that I don’t suffer from multiple personalities, but I do hold court with some wild voices in my head.

It’s not that I believe they are part of me, nor do they possess my thoughts, but they are definitely looking for an outlet. Wild characters with so much spunk that I have to write them down as fast as I can before they become flight risks. One such character plagues me. She woke me with uncompromising urgency, as determined as a weed navigating upward mobility in a sewer drain. I turned on the light and started to write. This is an old one, but hope you will indulge me on this ancient piece.

So this is the voice of Mama…who is giving words of wisdom to her young son. I am told that people don’t always heed good advice. More often than not they see it pass by and wave. I suspect this is what’s happening here. So, without further delay, a little counseling about the birds…the bees…the wasps…the hornets…and everything else that stings…and raises a welt.

Your Mama Knows

Stop touching yourself. Leave that thing be.
Pay attention boy. Listen up…‘cuz these here are the rules.
First thing you got to get into that thick skull of yours…
Remember who you are, what you are, and what you stand for.
Don’t do anything to embarrass your Daddy, God rest his soul.
And sure as hell don’t do anything to embarrass your Mama.
Nobody else gonna be fool enough to raise you.

When it comes to girls, you gotta understand something
A rich one takes up just as much room in bed
as one of them poor girls.
There ain’t no such thing as an ugly rich girl.
I SAID, Stop touching yourself.
Leave the DAMN thing be.
Keep them hands out of your pockets,
the hunts been called off.
No genie gonna pop out of there.
If you keep touching it, you’ll lose your sight.
You want to sit in the dark listening to your Mama
tell everyone how you come to be blind?
Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m saying.
You’re just like your sorry-ass brother,
Fool put his dick in a blender.
Damn near killed himself in my kitchen.

If you pick your nose like that you’ll bleed to death.
If you eat what comes out of that nose,
You’ll spend the rest of your natural days alone.
You’ll shrink if you smoke. Coffee will shrink you too.
If you drink, like your poor daddy, God rest his soul,
Your liver gonna explode.
And I’m not picking up that shit again.

Leave them drugs alone.
The law is the law and they’ll lock you up.
You’ll go directly to jail just like your brother.
Some people ain’t worth a hill of beans
And that’s all I’m going to say about it.
If you call your Mama a crazy bitch again,
You’ll be picking your teeth out of your undershirt.

Put the toilet seat up before you use it.
Put it down when you’re done.
Don’t call your sister a douche bag.
She is your DAMN sister.
And don’t be going through her things.
Tampons are not torpedoes.
The Lord did not create a nativity scene so you can play army.
You can’t pull anything over on Our Lord Jesus Christ.
He don’t like being blown out of a manger.
The Almighty gonna strike you dead…
He knows when those Three Wise Men come out of the closet
and you blast those boys to Kingdom Come.

Don’t lie. Never cheat. Or steal.
Never touch a girl. You will live to regret it.
Leave ‘em be. You heard me.
LEAVE ‘em BE.
Always treat girls with respect, except for the bad girls…
Which you can spot coming a mile away.
If you touch the bad ones
You’ll get a rash on that thing the likes you’ve never seen.
Red hot coals gonna fly outta there like fireworks on the 4th.
And just when you think you can’t take one more minute of pain,
That’s when that DAMN thing gonna fall off and you be wishing you is dead.

BUT, if you must touch a girl
AND if you’re lucky enough to have your thing stay on,
Don’t knock her up. Shoot out of the basket.
Any girl worth a damn is not gonna let you near her privates.
Do you hear me? What did I just say?
Let me tell you something right here…right now
A girl come round this place with your child in her belly
You better find yourself some running shoes with good treads.
You got to be a smart boy. A libido ain’t no compass.

Girls can spot a good man like a bargain.
With that sugar-sweet voice and their eyes kinda shut like so,
They gonna tell you its all cool, they got it covered.
Don’t you listen. This is something your Mama knows all about.
They’ll rub against you and shake that groove thing
And you gonna feel like the devil himself
is tugging on your dick.
And there ain’t no question. He Is.
No one wishes Eve left that apple hanging more than your ol’ Mama, but I wasn’t there to slap that bitch silly.
I’m telling you for your own good, don’t touch them girls.
When those kind of girls come round acting all fired up,
You tell them “I got just two words for you – “A Dios.”
For Chrissakes boy, STOP TOUCHING!”