The Mask Still Has My Skin On It

I was trained to flex instead of feel, to lift rage like iron, to carry silence like a loaded chamber. Every nod of approval carved another scar over the nerves I wasn’t allowed to name.

Nobody taught me how to feel my spine.
Only how to brace it,
how to grind my teeth until enamel tasted like duty,
how to hold still while the storm crawled under my skin
and called it discipline.

Pain was a passcode.
If it didn’t hurt, it didn’t count.
If I cried, I had to bleed after
just to earn the right to stay.

Touching myself once meant punishment,
a belt, a threat, a stare too long.
Now it means presence,
a pulse returned to flesh
they spent years trying to exile.

I relearned my skin by scraping through it.
Every muscle an old war story.
Every inhale a dare to stay.

This body,
mine now,
was never meant to be a cage for performance.
It was wired for warning,
but I was taught to silence the sirens
and smile through fire.

I was trained to flex instead of feel,
to lift rage like iron,
to carry silence like a loaded chamber.
Every nod of approval carved another scar
over the nerves I wasn’t allowed to name.

They taught me that sensation was shame,
and that numbness was manhood.

But here,
in the tremor of my own pulse,
in the grit of breath dragged raw through lungs,
in the twitch that says I’m still here,
I reclaim every nerve they tried to cut.

Masculinity was a mask they nailed to my face.
I rip it off with bare hands,
and let the blood prove I was always alive.

Beyond the Bruise:

📝 Poems land on random weekdays.
🖤 Paid subs get the full weight.
☕ Buy Me a Coffee keeps ink alive.
📖 My books carry the longer story.
👕 Shadow Thoughts merch wears the dark.
🕊 Healing Thoughts holds the softer breath.