How to be a Man
When I was three years old,
I would berate myself
When sent to my room.
“So stupid! I’m a bad kid!”
My mother wanted to comfort me,
But my father preferred to let me work it out for myself.
When I was seven years old,
I fell off my bike, and shattered my arm.
I cried at first, wailing at my pain,
But “be a man, men don’t cry”
Taught me to shut up.
Apparently men don’t show pain.
When I was ten years old,
I was beat up on the school bus,
My glasses broken and my face bruised.
When I lied and said I broke the glasses,
And my parents learned of the altercation,
I was praised for not complaining, for dealing with it myself.
When I was 17 years old,
My mother glimpsed the scars on my wrist,
That I had hidden for months.
“Why didn’t you tell me??
You shouldn’t bottle things up!”
Well, which is it? Express my pain or suffer in silence?
Now I’m 22 years old,
And I can’t find love,
Girls want more than
The emotional availability of a rock,
And even if she dealt with that,
I’ve forgotten where I hide my feelings, and I can’t feel things back.
If I ever find them,
If I gain the access I’ve lost;
If I ever have a son,
I don’t know how to teach him
How to be a man
Because I haven’t yet figured it out for myself.
April 24, 2018 at 4:55 am
Aw ❤️
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April 24, 2018 at 8:54 pm
beautiful
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April 30, 2018 at 11:38 am
It’s so very sad that guys are conditioned to not show their emotions. I do hope we change that, collectively.
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May 1, 2018 at 11:59 pm
Great post. What makes a man? Try not to hurt others. Be good, be kind, love deeply, care about being honest. That makes a man. It isn’t muscles, or testosterone. It’s about giving a damn about others. But you probably already figured that out. Cheers.:)
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May 2, 2018 at 12:41 am
Cheers Steven! Glad you liked it
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May 2, 2018 at 10:40 am
I did! Cheers. 🙂
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May 2, 2018 at 9:35 pm
Well, I’m hoping this isn’t autobiographical but assuming it is…I’m sorry that yet another family has perpetuated this cycle.
Real men can cry, they can feel things like pain, love and sadness and express them as well! I know you “know” this and I hope you are able to reconnect with that part of you that you walled away. It may take sometime but you can take down the wall brick by brick.
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May 3, 2018 at 12:48 am
Yep, it’s autobiographical alright! I working hard on reconnecting with that part of me, but it’s certainly a process.
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May 3, 2018 at 7:21 am
Realize that there is something outside society that almost all others won’t acknowledge. Your family is your main base of operation. All the rest is surrounding jungle. It is hard to find anything or anyone worth having without first learning how to properly hunt for the most useful species.
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May 3, 2018 at 4:32 pm
Men who can write poetry like this are pretty damn awe inspiring. If all that is coming out of your head, it’s already there in your heart.
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May 10, 2018 at 2:09 am
Maybe not knowing how to be a man comes from not recognising you are one. If you can get around that perhaps you can teach your son. To be himself. Or herself if that’s how she sees it ;).
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May 13, 2018 at 4:23 pm
Thank you so much for being willing to share this. It’s heartbreaking, and important. I appreciate your insights, and that you’re working to learn more, discover more, and be more.
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May 14, 2018 at 8:16 pm
Of course! I use this blog to share a lot of personal things I’m working through, and I think it’s important to share so that other people can see that they’re not alone. No struggle is unique!
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May 15, 2018 at 10:17 pm
I was always told “a man wouldn’t” but no one told me what a man would.
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May 15, 2018 at 10:33 pm
Y’know, that’s a really insightful point!
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May 16, 2018 at 6:43 pm
This is wonderfully poignant. Young men are expected to make their way in the world, but too many have been trained to be reluctant about expressing what they want, what they need. Thanks for sharing this.
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May 16, 2018 at 6:53 pm
You’re quite welcome, thank you for reading it!
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May 16, 2018 at 11:21 pm
Beautifully written. So many mixed messages we tell our children.
It sounds like you’ve figured out what really makes a man.
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May 22, 2018 at 1:40 pm
This is wonderful and so made me think of my own son.
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May 26, 2018 at 1:47 am
Being you by expressing the way you have in this poem shows the world you are very much a man, the sort of man who is figuring it out along the way just like so many of us. Your vulnerability and courage in sharing is beautiful, thank you.
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May 26, 2018 at 9:23 am
Thank you for the kind words!
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June 7, 2018 at 10:18 pm
Glad you’re working it out by writing about it, and thanks for visiting my blog too!
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June 9, 2018 at 8:01 pm
So cool you are able to say this out loud at this stage in your life. I’m 68 and it took a near fatal heart attack for me to discover where my heart is. Now the bricks are coming away fast. Just sad it didn’t start happening 40 years sooner.
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June 29, 2018 at 6:47 am
Awesome. I can relate.
Check out this post that relates to it via emmanuellove356165818.wordpress.com/2018/06/29/how-to-be-a-man-even-when-you-are-different/
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April 12, 2019 at 6:41 pm
There is a time to be silent and a time to cry; the trick is to figure out the right time and place as well as with whom.
Raise your son the opposite from the way your parents raised you, be consistent by not sending mixed messages but don’t go to the opposite extreme.
Like mine he’ll turn out just fine and survive the hard knocks life and others will throw at him.
Today my son is a father, owns his own home and manages the biggest toy box in town – toy dept at Wally World.
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