acting like a man

you thought you couldn't be a man because
you couldn't brutalise,
because you dreamed of making love
or being made love to,
unable and unwilling to
kill that which you would fuck
or fuck that which you'd kill.

a man flings Jezebel to dogs,
has dreams at least of being strong,
of sewing oats and conquering.

you couldn't even fit the type
set out for queers like you,
promiscuous and gay,
buried as you are in pounds of flesh,
wielding a brittle tongue.

and so it was that years passed by
without much love beyond
the dormant, yearning kind,
because you couldn't be a man,
because the man you were
had never come of age.

and so it is that wisdom comes
as grindingly as age,
but nonetheless has this message:
that acting like a man
is not the same as being one,
that part of it's the human touch,
the knowing when to cry, to feel,

and how.