A man must do it all with a \u2018hard edge\u2019
A little rough, nasty, brutish
With courage and temperance, wisdom and justice
With cardinal virtues displayed
All along the way
So to never share
Life\u2019s tender moments.
Or better still,
To never have them at all.
To be a man is to compare.
All that goes is big, and vulgar, and virile
Now that\u2019s very important you know….virility
Just a taut wire
Erect all the time
As if there was no before or there\u2019ll be no after
Erect all the way
A man must do unto this last
And be proud of what he\u2019s produced
A piece of heavy metal
A prick-ly shard of glass<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so when I want
To have an experience, a stroll, a gentle push… not a \u2018jerk\u2019
I\u2019m being too needy
And men can\u2019t need. They provide, you know
With no cardinal virtues, when I
Crave and I share,
I\u2019m at fault.
When I doubt if it has to be that hard-edged
Or when I long for care
Or to care for
As I generate empathy in bed
I\u2019m being a \u2018softy\u2019
And I\u2019ll \u2018never get a woman\u2019
Because a man never welcomes. He \u2018gets\u2019, right?
I\u2019m warm some days
Going slow and steady
Neither erect all day
Nor erect all the way
When there truly is no \u2018climax\u2019
But a sinuous path to pleasure and fun
There\u2019s nowhere to be and nowhere to run
I\u2019m laughed at and chided
For a man doesn\u2019t linger. He just arrives, you know<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s all the big roles and ethics
All there to fulfil.
Another task,
Another box to tick
Another concrete path to rush
Quick, simple and straight.
All t\u2019s and i\u2019s
No oohs and aahs
The formality is done
And on we must go!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only that I of swollen eyes
And tired skin must wait
And linger
And worship for a while.
Afford a break or two in between
And hazard a happy smile
Cherish it, kiss it all
Whetting it through my hair and flesh
Letting it pass each bone in my body
Hell no!
Patriarchy won\u2019t have all this nonsense
For I, ever the future \u2018father\u2019
Can only serve and protect
Forever and truly be alone…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cover Image: Photo by jurien huggins<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" That\u2019s all the big roles and ethics
\nAll there to fulfil.
\nAnother task,
\nAnother box to tick
\nAnother concrete path to rush
\nQuick, simple and straight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":471,"featured_media":25182,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4179,1,3401],"tags":[22,3536,1200,837,367,4256,268,295,43,849,135,4257,25,298,2872],"class_list":{"0":"post-25133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-body-and-sexuality-2","8":"category-categories","9":"category-fiction-poetry","10":"tag-body","11":"tag-expression","12":"tag-gender-norms","13":"tag-gender-roles","14":"tag-identity","15":"tag-maleness","16":"tag-masculinity","17":"tag-masturbation","18":"tag-men","19":"tag-norms","20":"tag-patriarchy","21":"tag-self-pleasure","22":"tag-sexualities","23":"tag-stereotypes","24":"tag-tropes"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/471"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25133"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26022,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25133\/revisions\/26022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}