I ate the apple and fled the garden, I built civilizations and crushed them, all in one breathe. I killed mammoths with pointy spears and bathed forests with great fires. 

I rode horseback as knights protecting kings, took the form of roaming ronins during the Edo period, chopped heads in Nanjing for my emperor, and dropped nuclear bombs in Hiroshima in the name of freedom.

Billboards were plastered across 50s Los Angeles with the latest Rock Hudson tribute act, marches took place across the plains of undiscovered land as colonizers did what man does best–all in my name. 

I was the head of the nuclear family, my car was an extension of my manhood and I never did quite take a liking to those bra-burning feminists. 

I was in every boardroom worldwide poisoning the oceans, I snorted unlimited cocaine as Wall Street boomed in the 80s, I was every ghoulish politician barking over where to send the next hoard of baby-faced adults to die. 

I never liked glam rock or long-haired hippies, “Where did pomade and a nice jawline go?” I would cry out as I sat on the retractable couch with the latest feast my wife prepared. I deserved it damn it! after a 10-hour shift at the steel mill and never asking for a raise, I deserved a little dinner and a crummy rant.

I used to teach my little brother to fight until his knuckles bled, I would call anything I didn’t know gay and I hated that my shoulders just couldn’t be wide enough no matter how many pushups I did.

That’s all I knew, that’s all I ever learned to be. 

I’m disappearing, I feel this cold shutter so I resist. I type, I protest, I hate, I pass laws and most of all I scream. This increasingly blurred world is reshaping me, pulling apart and rooting me to my core like a science experiment with a rusted knife.

Even if I become radical, hateful, or If I hurt you would you listen?. How come violence isn’t working anymore I ask myself, why won’t people just obey me. 

What If I was vulnerable would that be enough, no you just say that but nobody likes when I’m weak, even if I get on my knees and grovel–it won’t be enough right? Was I that bad? I had some redeeming qualities right?

You’re silent, why won’t anyone answer anymore?.

I’m no longer a man, just a trait. I’m no longer a shackle just a key.