Big boys don’t talk.

 

I have a friend I know outside in.

It’s sad but true, he never lets me in.

We have long been as thick as thieves,

Chattering and laughing whilst he deceives,

Not out of malice or that he is sly, rather society prefers not to ask why

Why does he go silent for weeks on end?

Why does he talk of the surface but never of what is within?

Why cry, why admit the ache of the heart,

Instead be the tough guy, the stoic the man hard from the start

Never ask for help or talk of your estranged father

No such feelings can be disguised by hollow laughter

And still more you can repress your distress

Until you are depressed and bite at those who know you best.

So much so that you can quit your job, default on your rent

And find yourself homeless without even a tent

And when at the end of that road you will still refuse to pick up the phone

To confess your angst, your worry and woe

Because you have become used to what it feels to be alone?

But together we can descend from that throne

That altar of the bit lip, demanding the unbending backbone

Tell it no I am not made of steel, I cry I hurt, sometimes I kneel

And it is not our weakness to admit as much

But rather a strength to unburden that which is stuck

That lump in the throat, that tumult of the stomach,

That fear and anxiety that sets you teeth to locking

Will go if you take the hands of a human who knows that same dreadful knocking

Because that is the truth that we all know but deny

That we each think those either side are stronger than I

That they look so together, complete and perfect

How then could I ever depict my own inner conflict?

But talk, be candid and you will hear

That they too have balled up their fear

That they too are muddied by the madness and sadness

That life has punctuated with moments of gladness

And that they may have ended it all, jumped from a building, leapt before a train

But stopped themselves in remembering another also shares their pain,

Another also is held up in chains

Another also feels the strain

Of what is to be a being with blood pumping through their veins.