DEAR MAN/Deer Man | Eliot Li

My dialectical behavioral therapist tells me to use the behavioral strategy DEAR MAN when my wife verbally attacks me, to improve our communication. The experience of going through the steps is transformative, in ways I could not have predicted.

D – Describe the situation.

Several times today, you told me I’m a shitty father and husband.
A bushy tail unfurls from my backside.

E – Express how you feel about the situation

I feel hurt and humiliated when you say this.
My ears grow sideways, and I hear our kids kicking a ball in the park, a block away.

A – Assert yourself

I need you to stop using judgmental words like ‘shitty.’
The sprouting antlers feel heavy on my head.

R – Reinforce your request

We’ll get along better if you talk using neutral, nonjudgmental words.
I tap my cloven hooves on the hardwood floor for emphasis.

M – Mindfulness is vital

You're right, I’m not a perfect father or husband, but I still deserve to be treated with dignity.
I regurgitate creamed spinach, chew it up and swallow it again, into my four-chamber stomach.

A – Appear Confident

I puff out my woolly red-brown chest, and straighten my muscle-bound neck.

N – Negotiate

This step is impossible, as my mouth is now a snout, not useful for making speech.

I eat weeds in the park, and play keep-away with our kids, darting behind trees with their ball between my teeth.
At home, I curl up in bed, while my wife fluffs my white tail.

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Eliot Li lives in California. His recent work appears in HAD, Necessary Fiction, Ghost Parachute, South Florida Poetry Journal, Emerge, Cheap Pop, SmokeLong Quarterly, and elsewhere.