I check the tone of my voice to see
If I’ve become a man, like Odysseus,
If my gait stood strong like a Trojan horse,
Deceptive, but a well planned opulence,
Lured by the sirens of my own perfection.
Before puberty, the squeak of my voice
Haunted me tirelessly and unafraid,
Longing to escape the burden of boyhood,
Masked by the tyranny of expectations,
Cursed by a conscious vanity:
When would I become a man?
My frailness became it’s own enemy,
Locked in a chasm of regret and allure,
Running towards validation,
Like a good infantryman towards gunfire,
The blaze of contempt for my own manhood,
Reduced me to a giant without the strength, might, or height,
As the sirens of conformity,
Drifted me to the shores of complacency.
As winter has gone on for far too long,
And the spring winds foreign from rusted chimes,
I check the tone of my voice to see
If I’ve become a man, like Odysseus.
War Poems 