Oh Wow, Look at Me, I'm a "Man"
They told me, “you need to toughen up, a man should be like a rock.” Dependable. Hard to break. Something anyone could rest on without wondering what carried them there.
They told me,
“you need to toughen up,
a man should be like a rock.”
Dependable. Hard to break.
Something anyone
could rest on
without wondering
what carried them there.
So I learned to grow hard
from my father’s anger,
and my mother’s distance.
I held all of it inside
with my hands calm.
People noticed.
“Nothing ever seems to shake you.”
“You always find a way to get it done.”
Funny how much people love strength
when they are the ones benefiting from it.
I became the place
everyone dropped their fear,
their mistakes,
their fucking need
to know somebody
would still be standing
when they all fell apart.
Nobody asked
what happened to all that weight
once they walked away.
I carried it with me.
Sat with it
in the parked car
after shift.
In the driveway at home,
hands still on the wheel,
engine off,
house just a few feet away,
myself,
unable to move.
But none of it fucking mattered.
The morning would come
and there I was
putting on my big boy boots,
again,
and again.
I earned more praise that way.
“You’re a machine, brother.”
“I don’t know how you do it.”
Huh. Neither did I.
I thought surviving the day
meant I was handling it.
Meanwhile,
my sleep kept getting shorter
and my anger kept showing up
in some pretty stupid places.
A stuck drawer,
getting caught in traffic,
shit,
even someone chewing too damn loud
could set me the fuck off.
My whole life
became one long raised shaking fist
to the world
with a paycheck.
The old man screaming,
“Get the fuck off my lawn!”
Still,
I carried more.
Because rocks don’t complain!
Rocks don’t call at midnight
and admit they’re too scared to continue.
Rocks don’t tell their children,
“Dad is just having a hard time right now.”
Rocks sit there,
they take on the weather,
all the bullshit.
Rocks get stepped on,
kicked,
and yet praised for staying put.
Then it happened.
I sank.
Like a rock does.
I just reached a morning
when getting out of bed
felt heavier
than everything
I had carried before it.
That’s when the people around me started asking.
“What happened to you? Why didn’t you say something?”
I remember thinking,
‘What the fuck?
You happened to me.’
Every hand
that put something down on me
because I looked strong enough
to carry it for them.
Every voice
that praised my silence.
Every room
that needed my calmness
more than it needed me.
You taught me
that a good man
holds everything in.
Then acted surprised
when the weight of it all
took him somewhere
you could no longer reach.
You wanted a rock. You fucking got one.
