To be a man







A man,
A man.
I wasn't one until the cut*.



When the doctor bend into my thighs with his scissors,
I wasn't one.
I wasn't one,
Until he did it!

Made those shiny blades slice through my fore skin.
And my dad yelled it!

Said. “My son! My son! You are now a man."
And I bled and smiled at him,
At four,
I had earned it!
I could now sit in the presence of men,
Wasn't allowed to meander about the kitchen,
Couldn't cry, couldn't blabber about,
A man. I had become one.

My father made it known first hand that to be a man was to be earned.
My mother reiterated,
“No one is a man unless he earns it.
A man is to be one or be nothing!"

Even women could be men.
When they perform well in school,
Take care of their families,
Buy their own things,
It is said.

“She does it so well. She does it just like A man!"

My mother and grandmother were men!



So I earned it with the cut,
I became a young man,

But that title is not like something you earn and it becomes yours,
It is like a rental houses. Business Licences, health.
You have to keep earning it.
It doesn't matter how much you've accomplished to earn it in the past
You loose it once,
You are not a man!
You do not have it.

Society defined it next;
It said in low yet stern tones,
“Men were to be good at maths"
In school,
And men are be always right,
In debates,
“And men were to be athletes and never be outshone by women."
In sports.
So phrases like “you run like a woman thrived."
I still do not know what that means.

A man
It continued,
To be a man.
You have to earn your wife.
And she isn't yours unless you continue to earn her!

To be a man,
You have to be terribly brute, at...