Growing Up
I was taught men do not need to be held so I learned how to stand still while waiting to fall. I was told strength meant silence, so I built a house of unsaid things and called it reason. When tenderness came, I called it weakness. When loss came, I called it conspiracy. When love came, I said I'd outgrown that kind of illusion. To be awake, I thought was to stop wanting what I could not bear to feel. And so, I tore down every door that led inward, each one labeled foolish by the man I hoped to become. I called this awakening but it was only sleep without dreaming. Inside, a child still whispered through the walls: teach me to be what I was not allowed to learn.


Thanks to @Lyrics and Fire for restacking this poem.
Grateful to @Geraldine A. V. Hughes, thank you, Lady G