the war on men

this month feels like a prayer
stuck in my throat.
men’s mental health month.
my birthday month.
father’s day.
tell me again
why we teach boys
to make wishes on fire
but never show them how
to survive the burn.

the war on men is subtle.
it wears deodorant
laced in endocrine disruptors.
it hands out gold stars
for dissociation.
it raises a glass
to the guy who never cries.
and gives him a stroke before 40.
it sips caffeine at 6am and
forgets the taste of wonder
by noon.
it sells you hustle
in exchange for your heart.
then gaslights your body
when it collapses.

when men don’t cry,
their bodies do.
through inflammation.
through autoimmune storms.
through the silent screams
of gut linings and lymph nodes begging
for what their mouths never learned
to say.

the war on men
doesn’t sound like bombs.
it sounds like
“i’m fine.”
like
“just tired.”
like
“i’ve been busy.”
like a father’s voice gone thin
over speakerphone,
calling from a job that’s killing him
slowly enough to cash the check.

men don’t die from weakness.
they die from mistaking armor
for identity.

every man i know is carrying a weight
no gym could prepare us for.
like the time i deadlifted 500 pounds,
but still couldn’t pick up the phone
to tell my brother i loved him.

what is strength
if it can’t save the ones
we’d die for in theory
but ghost in practice?

don’t wait for a casket
to say you care.

this isn’t about
turning warriors into poets.
it’s about remembering
that warriors were always
the most poetic creatures alive.
who else runs headfirst into death
for something they love?

being a man isn’t about never falling apart.
it’s about learning how to rebuild a better future
from the rubble.

men have been taught to conquer mountains.
but no one told us the real climb
is from the mind to the heart.

we’re taught to fuck like porn stars
and fix like mechanics
but never how to feel like god
while worshiping a woman
like she’s the source
of every creation story.

you want masculinity?
fall to your knees
and ask your body
what it’s been holding
since the day you were told
to stop crying
before you were given
something to cry about.
then hold it like you wish
your father held you.

the first war a man fights
shouldn't be for someone else.
it should be the one he wins
when he learns to hold his own wounds
without calling them weakness.

we teach boys to take bullets
before kisses,
to protect a country
before they protect their own innocence.
then we wonder why they hold women
like war zones.

if a boy isn’t allowed to cry for his mother,
he’ll spend his whole life searching for her
inside women who never signed up
to be a bandaid
for a boy’s buried heartbreak.

let the next generation of men
be raised on poetry,
not prisons
of suppressed pain.

stop fasting from your feelings, brother.

i’d rather be a man who weeps
than one who wins at pretending
he doesn’t bleed.

they gave us a month
to talk about our mental health
but forgot to teach us the language for it.
so i wrote mine in scars.