Be a man.
**** it up.
That’s what they tell you
when your hands shake
and your chest feels hollow.
“No pain.
You’re delusional.
You’re weak.”
So you bite your tongue
till it bleeds quiet,
swallow every feeling
like it’s something to be ashamed of.
Take these meds.
You’ll feel better.
But the numbness spreads
like winter through your veins,
until you can’t tell
if your heart stopped hurting
or just stopped feeling.
Bottle it up.
Hold it in.
Keep smiling.
Even when your right hand goes numb
from punching walls
that never hit back.
Even when the headache pounds
like guilt behind your eyes.
“You’re just like your dad,”
they say,
as if pain is inherited,
as if breaking was destiny.
And still—
you hide the blade,
call that survival,
call that strength.
Because men don’t cry, right?
Men endure.
Men rot in silence
while everyone claps for how well they carry it.
Nobody cares.
That’s the lesson.
If you open up,
they laugh.
At your voice.
Your body.
The parts of yourself
you already learned to hate first.
So be a man.
**** it up.
Smile through the numbness.
And pray
there’s still something human left in you