Jealousy is a sharp knife

When she moves down the street, with her little sway and waddle there creates a commotion; the desired effect. Every wisp of hair, every adornment and effort made to create this ripple, while looking like no effort was taken at all. The park locals hush to a whisper; the boys look away from whomever else it is they are each nuzzling to keep an eye on her as she passes. The taxis make extra effort to make sure she isn’t in need of a lift. Every effort is made.

The exterior is worshiped, adorned and bedazzled. The exterior is praised. She does her work, and it does its work. Drawing attention as she walks, seemingly in complete oblivion. Just a girl, no effort what so ever. Just a woman on her way. Because it is all part of the dance, and when this part yields the next part the music stops and a new dance begins. The effort is made, but now with a different purpose. The effort is also now to protect what she now claims, her prize, won on the battlefields of beauty and charm. She protects her future, her security and her claim. She, like a lioness, protects with ferocity even if it is the subtle, and seemingly effortless kind. She will protect her den and her stake on this man with the same cunning that she employed to win him: dazzling beauty, effort disguised as nature and manipulation (with or without the negative connotations and overtones).

It is both a threat and a compliment for what she defends so ruthlessly; it is for her station and for her respect. It is with this devotion, demonstrated as viciousness, that she honors her man, shows him that he is valued, and that she will bare her teeth and claws to maintain her right to claim him.

And the dance goes on.

Some of this is cultural, and other women no longer stalk their prey in such manners, nor do they defend so fiercely. It is a delicate line to walk when do you hunt, when do you become the prey; when do you dig in and fight for what is yours and when you let this one go, catch and release?

Have women really changed that much? Has nature evolved at all or just been retarded by social trappings, things with fancy names like propriety, liberation, independence, education, property, civilization and formalities? How does a man know she cares unless she bares her teeth, defend what you love and fight to the death? How do women hang on to what they want while seeming so aloof? Is there a way to walk through the park and be seen for who you are, beyond your sway and waddle? Who are you beyond your sway and waddle?

The man is the hunter, or is so often said, but what if it isn’t that way? Not the way we have always thought, the way we have always said.

How come in nearly every species but our own, the males are the more decorative, the more bedazzled and with the most plumage? Is the plumage what makes the hunter? How else are women supposed to navigate this dance? Teeth and feathers, dancing, swaying with claws out.

So she moves through the park, head up, tail out, feathers glistening in the light and swaying in the wind, ready to be the hunter or the hunted, while looking like no effort was taken at all.