she doesn’t let me drink
and insists
that I listen to her

insists with
a viciousness

“It’s because you work night shifts,”
she says.

“What’s that got to do with drinking
while I’m free?”

“Alcohol lowers a man’s testosterone level
and increases estrogen. Why
don’t you know that? You
need to take better care of
yourself.”

she made for me a diet with
rice and garlic

calls me while on the night shift
and tells me to go into the bathroom
and jump 100 times
and do stretching exercises,
tells me to drink more water
She even buys me bags of nuts and seeds
and tells me to eat between the meals

“No sugar,” she says. “No, not even in
coffee. Pure black or nothing.”

she even bought me a
hand grip strengthener with adjustable resistance
to use while I’m in the office

she encouraged me to eat
raw eggs but stopped when
I told her that you can get salmonella like that

when I came home from work
one evening at 23:36
I ate my rice with garlic
and she asked if I wanted anything else
and I said “Yeah, a beer.”

“Okay,” she said. Went into the kitchen
came back fifteen minutes later with
a cup of tea and a lemon

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Ginger tea. It’s better with lemon. Should
I squeeze it for you?”

“No thanks, I’ll do it myself.” I cut the
lemon in half and squeezed it into the cup

It was the nectar of gods
and I didn’t
hesitate to tell her
so

“All right then,” she said. “Drink it all, rinse
with water before brushing your teeth
and then come to bed.”

I did all that and went to bed

and she wanted me to sleep
because lack
of sleep is the worst
enemy of a man’s testosterone levels