We Become the Men We Hated
(c. clay)

There’s a pyramid of power that’s explained to us as hope.
If we play by the rules we’ll climb its sides –
Or so the story goes.
To maintain our objective, our memory is selective.
And so: another year in the mill
And we, the willfully mentally ill….
It’s survival skill – without it why would we go on?

Here I go again – Saturday night,
Drunk in a crowd and itching to fight.
Looking for a loose mouth to misconstrue.
The soldier in the corner look like he’ll do.
And if the tables turn it don’t really matter,
We just need something to shatter tonight –
A little war between two pawns.
It’s just a habit. Impulse.
A habit. Cold.

We become the men we hated.
The ones who done frustrated up our minds.
We become the men we hated.
The faces that we ran from all our lives.

And when the water reach eye level:
Men are scum and men are dogs.
Men are good at rolling logs but
That man gush like a sissy.
Tell me about your fear of intimacy.
Man you best learn who is boss.
Pray to Jesus on a cross.
The preacher and the president
Tax on manhood til it’s spent.

Yo pop: My only proof that you got balls at all
Is that I am alive and came through you.
What I’m saying is: you should show some balls more often.
Take a tip from your son, take a stand for your son –
You might need the good it do you.
Life under your gaze was the most painful thing.
I’m glad I can’t see your eyes anymore.
The only thing - the thing that we -
Discussed was your disgust in me.
And you’d turn to ma sayin “But I try so hard…”
As I go running out the door.
Me & a broom & my sassy jaw bent against the kitchen sink.
And your “Why don’t you hit me back?”
I wish it was a Gandhi thing.

You can’t mistake a chisel for love.
You’ll never find the son you want
In the one you’re carving up.
And the forlorn face switches carriers with age.

We become the men we hated….

They say you are a useless boy – couldn’t hold you for ransom.
They say you’re an ugly boy though you hold yourself as handsome.
You & I are of the chosen to make a new line.
So get yourself standing like a Groom of God and tell the grapevine:

I am a gorgeous specimen of masculinity
I am a magnet for Divine prosperity
I am a sex god, I am God’s love
My joyful body – a holy rocket.
My higher moves are Ninja, my mind Samurai
And when you need and ear or shoulder, honey I am the guy
I am a new force of nature – the missing element
I am the very answer to the prayers I sent
I am the solid provider and the provided for
I am the monk, the seedy man, shell and the core
I am the drawn boundary of the open heart
I am my final word and I am the start