my manhood over tea

by Timotei Cobeanu

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i’ve been questioning my manhood over tea.

hardly noticed how heavy my body is, carrying

the depths of my eyelids; the burnt jeans, their tired rage.

my scared puffer jacket hiding itself.

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i’ve been dying to know:
where does my anger come from?
what country, what state, what burning lake?

is it the clothes i don’t wear? is my body

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a stranger to me and my slim silhouette?
it comes at the strangest of times. it breaks
me, like a cracked mirror that sleeps at the
edge of time: i loathe my reflection, even in the dark.

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i’ve been questioning my manhood over tea.
tried to look past the thick zara overshirts,
to tie strings in-between me and my inner hurt;
find stillness in the sapphire earrings for years i chose

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to avoid. whether they clash with my nikes is a different poem.

i want to learn how to love like a child again.
to be radiant and smile and wear lace like i’m ready for

sun rays to swallow me. to fear nobody.

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not even the clouds when they’re blocking the sunset.

not even my necklace when it whispers me nightmares.

the truth is i am tired. i heard my silence screaming at a

rave where my fears were dancing for days to escape me.

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i’ve been questioning my manhood over tea.
i’ve been thinking more than my clothes can hide.

i've swam in the deepest pond. sank with my eyes closed. 

is my manhood too busy to know hope at all?

i work hard, chase dreams, go to bed, bite my nails.
who’s to say it’s too late to moon-bathe in the sleeping river?

to hear the grass grow; the stars dripping answers.

my manhood is a wound with no plaster.

i’ve been taking my fingers for a dance

across my thinning arms.

i’ve rolled up my sleeves, so my muscles could breathe

in the softness of early light.

 

i’ve been learning to let go.
my gloveless hands like two tears in a flower vase: 

foreign. frail. reaching for stillness

in the waters that know them not.

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and how brave it is,
to just go on reaching.
and how liberating to dissolve

the male they want me

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to believe in.
to be the sky for a new dawn.

to be the man who lets go,

who is set free.

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i’ve been questioning
                         my manhood

                                           over tea.