For men who allow the
limbs of their bodies to rebel against their minds.
When you were born,
they gave you your native language.
Made into toy
soldiers.
Camouflaged in
masculinity.
At age five, you fell
off your bike, scraped your knee.
Your mother picked
you up; she brushed you off.
Your father,
stumbling behind from the depths of his manhood, says
“Fix your face, real
men don’t cry, try again.”
You’ve been in a
drought ever since.
Age 11 your father
gave up and your mother couldn’t stomach the resemblance in your face.
The block cradled you
like the regret she painted you as.
At 16, the first
woman you gave your heart to bruised it.
Wasted you on a
killing room floor.
The words from your
father still stain you, even on the cloth of his absence.
You cleaned and
licked your wounded pride as told.
Left a bitter taste
on your tongue.
Carried misogyny over
your shoulder like a wounded soldier.
Patriarch society
taught you that real men wear the pants.
You’ve wore women as
a notch on your belt since.
It’s the only way
you’ve been able to keep yourself up.
It trained to you to
walk upright, and
clench your teeth in
the war zone of your mouth.
Boots strapped.
Pants low.
Hold your dick as you
would rifle.
Head high.
Grimace in your face.
Show the world you
ain’t to be messed with.
You’ve been messed
over.
You were never
granted the chance to properly hurt.
Let alone heal.
There will be times
when you pose as a brick wall who doesn't know the art of crumbling.
Days where the shades
of your skin will be a thousand needless apologies,
forgiven in the comfort
of these arms.
My brother tells me
there will be times where,
brown folk will have
to keep a shotgun cocked in our throats,
tongue tickling the
trigger, and must not remain silent.
Times where you will
harden your heart.
Standing in your ways
as sturdy as conviction.
Wearing
insecurity/hatred/misogyny like a suit of armor.
I assure you there is
nothing safe about a guarded heart.
Like you it is
flawed. Know that it will fall. It will crack.
It will break.
It will heal.
At times, it will
shadow box itself.
It is a heart;
beatings are what it takes.
Beating is what it
does.
If you place a purple
heart inside a black box,
and it spends a lifetime attempting to beat its way
out,
does it make a sound?
