{"id":3116,"date":"2014-07-01T07:00:26","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T01:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak?p=3116"},"modified":"2018-07-17T15:37:37","modified_gmt":"2018-07-17T10:07:37","slug":"voices-poetry-lean-deleon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/voices-poetry-lean-deleon\/","title":{"rendered":"Voices: Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Boys standing up to their fathers are invitations to patriarchy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">When boys become men<br \/>\nit is marked by celebratory<br \/>\nloud aggression<br \/>\na crossroads in our lives.<br \/>\nit was when i was 15, and<br \/>\nfor the first time, finally raised fist<br \/>\nto my father&#8217;s face.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">but i was wrong<br \/>\nit was not manhood that i entered,<br \/>\nbut patriarchy<br \/>\nwhen i exchanged heart<br \/>\nfor fist. this is why they are the same size:<br \/>\nit\u2019s easy to mistake one for the other.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">i want to enter manhood gently.<br \/>\nwant to let go of the pain and hurt.<br \/>\nwant to redefine it to when i first wrote poetry<br \/>\nwhen i held my first born nephew in these riverbed arms<br \/>\nwhen i took ethnic studies<br \/>\nwhen the pain washes away, and you forgive your drug addict father<br \/>\nwhen your heart and fist open up simultaneously.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>$2 beer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">masculinity is like beer<br \/>\nafter a while<br \/>\nthe bitterness becomes natural to<br \/>\nthe tongue.<br \/>\nAt the club, all men order one.<br \/>\njust like beer,<br \/>\nmasculinity is<br \/>\ncheap and<br \/>\neasy to swallow<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>When boys forget they are butterflies<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Dear straight men in my life,<br \/>\nwhen you step back<br \/>\nfrom me being too close to you,<br \/>\ni notice.<br \/>\nI am not offended nor confused,<br \/>\nbut humored at the instants you guard up<br \/>\nlike a caterpillar whose horns<br \/>\nwere never meant to prick anyone.<br \/>\nBrother,<br \/>\ndo not disguise your back step and fist clench<br \/>\nas natural.<br \/>\nit is called patriarchy.<br \/>\nit is all consuming.<br \/>\nand soon those horns will pierce everyone you<br \/>\nlove<br \/>\nPlease let go of the intimidation<br \/>\nAnd step into the intimate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Boys standing up to their fathers are invitations to patriarchy When boys become men it is marked by celebratory loud&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":11645,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228,8],"tags":[229,26,135,11,1597],"class_list":{"0":"post-3116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-art-activism","8":"category-voices","9":"tag-activism","10":"tag-gender","11":"tag-patriarchy","12":"tag-poetry","13":"tag-toxic-masculinity"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3116","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\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3116"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11646,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3116\/revisions\/11646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}