Peer Pressure

Hot take:

"If you step on a crack

you break your mamma’s back"

Was effectively

The “Share this with 10 people

Or you’ll have bad luck for seven years”

Before the internet.

And I’ll be honest

There were days

I’d be terrified of going home.

Because of all the crevices

My feet seemed to naturally gravitate towards.

I developed this fear of closed doors.

A fear that they would always remain so

And that my mom would never come home

Because her son was a crack stepping asshole.

To this day

I’ll find my feet hovering

Over infrastructural indentations.

Meaning I’ll adjust my intended path

Based on a past childhood superstition

Some shithead kid only spread because it rhymed.

It’s funny

The things we’ll participate in

For fear of something worse happening.

For instance when I was six

I made fun of this girl in class named Ashley Dallas.

Because here last name was Dallas.

Because that’s the kind of shit you did as a kid.

And I participated

Because I wanted acceptance.

And the price of admission

Of “friendship”

Was making another human feel worthless.

And I paid it.

Or how I had my first drink

After the fourth time

My best friends asked me to try it.

Not because I wanted to taste alcohol

But because I feared my friends

Not wanting to be around such a square.

I put a depressant in my body

Because I was afraid of the depression

My mind would give me

If I didn’t.

Or how years later,

When I was contemplating ending my life,

I would always tell people who asked

That I was “fine.”

Because the only thing worse than dying

Was appearing fragile.

Breakable.

Unmanly.

I broke down

Only when no one was watching.

Hoping my “man card” would remain legitimate.

While my mental health deteriorated.

I still fear closed doors.

Not because of some stupid childhood game

But because of the “real men”

Who take their life every day

Due to a fear of honestly opening up.

A man-sized deadbolt placed on our pain

And the locksmiths of our friends

We’re afraid to confide in.

We defined a man

As someone who doesn’t need assistance.

And we’re etching tombstones with the hand me down chisels

Our shame put in our hands.

Our fear of confessing

Binge drinking coping

Drug numbing therapy

Condescending way of speaking

That being afraid of anything

Was cringeworthy.

We adhere to this belief

That showing any emotion besides anger

Was the antithesis of manly.

But we still hold our breath

As we pass graveyards.

Because we fear upsetting tradition

Hoping that if we don’t speak of these superstitions

They won’t kill us.

Despite all the evidence

That it’s all this holding in

That’s suffocating our ability to continue living.

I think it says everything

That I fear dying

Less than I fear being approved of.

Pardoned for my lapses in controlling the situation.

I’ve been killing my human

In hopes that it’ll somehow give me strength.

This manly trait.

A brand.

Marketing that I don’t need anyone else.

Like I could kill myself

And still bury my selfish afterwards.

And the cracks have begun showing.

The statistic is growing more concrete.

We are ending our stories early

Trying to fit into the caskets of manhood.

And I hate those Facebook posts

That say things like

“Share this with ten friends

Or miss your chance of good fortune."

But I would share this poem with everyone

If it means just one more “real man”

Would begin to open up.