Emasculation

 

20.5x28.5 inches; Watercolour, pen and ink over graphite pencil on handmade paper (Click on image to enlarge)

I am not a masculine man.

I deny to fit into that notion of a man.

I recoil from what I must become

To prove that I am enough of a man.

 

Many tried to make a man

Of what they found in me of a man!

Between my legs lay, for some,

Proof enough to define me as a man.

 

Once I was told by a proud macho man,

“Either you grow into a manly man

Or you must a man’s victim become!”

I wilted and curled into a wimpy man.

 

Teased for being the sissy man,

Bullied for not being a tough man,

I grew up to remain, for some,

A complete disgrace to the name of man.

 

I don’t care to be accepted as a man

Because that which confines every man,

I defied; to breathe my freedom,

I embody the fear of emasculation in each man.