Man

What if
   I found the flutter of ribbons to be beautiful.
would that make you think less of me?

if I had strong hands and the lands around rarely conquered me,
But I did find it pretty
When a child hugged on,
All bright eyed and excited
To something decidedly fluffy
What if
I found that I liked it when my hair looked good?
Would that make me less to you?
A few steps short of what should?
Of what I, me, as a man could be?
What if
I was born a man, and had never once wanted to be anything but.
If I was strong and tall and cared enough to call
but was willing to smile at a postcard whose decoration dared to include glitter?
How far above litter would that put me?
and i ask you
would that
leave me bitter
Sometimes i wonder when - i should sip my portion of joy
if anything more than acrid black and war was ever rationed for me
Or if i was just meant to hold this empty jagged can
And be too proud to beg

Sometimes i swear I hear you say our home is the dirt
Destined to writhe and fight in muck
but
We are taught to raise you up as high as we can,
and to lament only that you are limited by the length of our hands
as we lift you up our eyes are buried in the sand falling from you,

you

on this beach
To us Our arms just seem too short

And it burns
But we welcome that  pain as a line of excuse as to why it is that our eyes     are watering.

I need you to understand
That is part of what it means to be a man.
Many who are not struggle alot and claim that we as men almost assuredly cannot
Understand
But believe me
we can
Its just that we know inside
To say that we feel it too
the struggle
the pain pushed through
to admit we feel...
Would Make us less than men

But what if it didn't?
What if our love for the notebook didn't need to be hidden.

What if daily denials til we die alone didn't need to be written.
​​A stark impartment of the pain scripted in the scars littering our bodies.
Their origins,
the wars we fight so that you dont have to,
and we Know that WE dont have to.
We know that we could find joy and laughter instead
But to admit that we wish no war on those who differ, That we do not chase a swifter reason to kill a fellow grifter for his bread
Would make us less than men.
You may not believe it
but the numbers rarely lie
Dropping like flies. The world takes ten of us for you
Four of us to ourselves when we failed in our views.
Too many to their guitar strings
strung up in a final song to try to fix this wrong
Our songs turn to fables
stories like these when

Lost in thought I missed the fox I came out here with wire caught
And set free
When I could see
The scars of the wars it had been silently fighting to feed
wars she never asked for
wars that I knew too much about
What if I came home alone and without..
empty handed but full hearted
carrying nothing but life and beauty
Over swollen knuckles and leathery hands
I look at these
then the death hidden in those pots and pans
And lament. For I did not bring something to fill them
given that I had to kill them
and would rather see life instead
this bread
comes at the cost of needing to win it
and to begin it needn't have cost our smiles
but it does and it did
and now
with my empty hands
I
am less than a man.