"Confinement," A Poetry Post

There are a million ways to confine a man.

You can start early and
birth him into a world where there's
not enough milk,
not enough stimulus,
not enough time for an
early morning cuddle,
not enough lullabies,
not enough limits,
not enough anything and
lock him up into a
mentality of poverty
before he can say the
first of his very few
words.

You can wait until he understands and
tell him his father is a
no count hooligan that you
showed some mercy at a
weak point in your life and
teach him that men are a
terrible inconvenience.

That will create for him a
crisis of identity that will
bind him into a pseudo state of
remorse for being
born male.

You can wait until he runs and
tell him there is no place safe for a
boy to run full speed and fall down and
get up again.

Bandage him and pamper him and
shelter him from what it means to be the
alpha male in this great world,
and he will humble himself like a
lion raised in captivity on
beef jerky,
only feeding from handouts and
never reaching out for the greatness he
truly craves.

You can wait until he rebels and
strike him with meaningless consequences like an
unyielding tyrant.

Cover him in whelps without explanations like a
slave master.

Wrap him in punishments
like a poacher who does not speak his language and
does not care to acknowledge his divinity.

Then he will cower under all authorities,
held in a fear-laden silence,
unable to rise up and defend when
offenses are clearly committed against him.

You can wait until he loves and
crush him with the awareness of
all of his imperfections.

Belittle his every accomplishment and
minimize every bit of his learning.

Deny him conversation about great ideas.

He will then be a lone flower on a mountaintop,
unable to engage with a populace of daisies because of his
deep feelings of weed-dom,
unable to chase after the romances for which his heart
aches.

You don't have to cuff a man.
You don't have to cage a man.
You don't have to bind a man.
You don't have to kill a man.

Defang him.
Starve him.
Shame him.
Bruise him.
Silence him.
Isolate him.

Under
educate
him.

His humanity will forever be confined,
and he will become an animal.

-T. D. James-Moss