You can't erase your face.
You can't retrace or displace
the lines you dislike.
Some people try. Why?
At best it makes a mess.

Why am I upset by a little extra bone?
The external effects of my natural testosterone?
How can a bit of unwanted hair excite despair?
Why do I care?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I pointlessly worry
about silly points
like the size of my shoulders
or my knee and thumb joints.
My hairline, my brow ridge,
the shape of my nose,
my masculine pelvis,
my crooked man toes...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My eyes are fine --
My only feature I like.
My shy smile is alright
but not too wide
'cause of my overbite --
-- the size of those incisors!

Now, some would say that I'm just vain,
so self-obsessed I've gone insane.
But I would say that's how we're trained,
At least in this day and age.

Others might paint me like Dorian Gray
praying to Satan for youth to stay,
but I just wish it hadn't gone this way.

Why would you keep your looks immutable
if you were never to begin with beautiful?

My Body cannot Cry,
but my Soul Screams Eternally

Vocal ingenuity
A generous gratuity
I wish could be removed from me
But I would still write poetry

--Which someone else would have to read
As from the page the inkblots plead
"Give us a voice!" the letters said
Without a voice they would be dead

But no-one reads my poetry
And so its voice is left to me
To show the World, or just to try
Be truly heard before I die

What does it mean to be a man?

A hush quiets the room.

Seriously, what does it mean? I asked.

Because I've searched online forums and the trolls don't have much right to say,

I'd ask my father as if he would know himself,

I look at celebrities, friends, strangers, and yet I still wonder....

What does it mean to be a man?

Heaven help me because role models are hard to find. If God created sinners he must have made men with a special idea in mind.

Why do I desire something that is so hard to understand?

So tell me, what does it really mean to be a man?

Brevity of rot in wheeling
Memory and thought and feeling
Deviation from direction
Trajectory is shot and keeling

alleviation from all reflection
obfuscation of my projection
something leaks from my skull
flirtation with my own defection

thrumming bleats, a searching squall
for refunding or reaping or any recall
of memory or thought or feeling
Hunting weakly then withdrawal

Entropy is not appealing
Elegies a clot to dealing
Dedication to direction
Empathy without the healing

here lies a pine tree
grown for years, but times have changed
now i grow redwoods