“To be a Man”

My relationship with masculinity is estranged. I grew up in a family, community, and culture that encouraged a narrow, singular idea of what it means to be a man. As a child I was one of four brothers, meaning I am no stranger to the aggression and violence that takes place in a house where boys become men. In my experience the blow of a fist doesn’t sting as much as the words “toughen up” Or “be a man”. I know what it’s like to inflict pain on someone you love, but was I not a boy just being a boy? How was I to know that pain lasts far longer than the purple shade of a bruise? I was a boy, a boy who was given permission to be aggressive, to take up space, to be loud, and to be entitled, but not to be sensitive, to cry, to use my words, or to sometimes feel small. I was a perpetrator of violence. I am a victim of violence. Everyday I turn on the news and I see violence. Violence created by people who look like me. Media begs the question “Why did this happen?”. I don’t and not because men aren’t supposed to beg for anything, but because how can I act ignorant when “playing” consisted of killing my brothers with toy guns? What rock would I have to live under to not know that being taught to feel nothing was why the only thing I ever felt was angry? What do I say to the friends I love when they tell me they’re terrified and I know it’s because of men who look and grew up like me? A fear I’ll never know, an “I’m sorry” that changes nothing. Masculinity, as it exists is a sickness. A disease that plagued how I felt, how I dressed, how I carried myself, how I treated others, and even how I made art. I have spent years of my adult life recovering from an ideology that taught me to be less, to feel less, but to somehow be more. I was born a man, I Identify as a man, but I still don’t know what it means to be a man.