once, you were

a tender child,

to pretty to be a boy, they both said

a mattress on their floor was your bed

you were five

too little to

grasp the pornography they showed you

too little to

not want to please them like they asked

with your little mouth

that should have been busy

blowing bubbles

laughing at cartoons

chatting to teddy bears

instead you asked yourself

am i man enough?

 

because, one day you got creative

and tried to penetrate them

just like that man in their video

you wanted to be macho

just like your GI Joe

 

and they had the balls to

turn around and laugh at you

and they had the balls to

call you gay, years afterward

 

poor boy, you were too little

to say

you know what? no thank you

i politely decline

i don’t want this forever stamped in my mind

i don’t particularly want my first experience

to be incest

no thank you, i’ll pass

 

for so long afterward

you looked for

a woman who would not

turn around

and laugh at you

because you feared

they had turned you

into a girl

 

you stopped looking

once you hypothesized

someone must have

ignored they had been girls,

not women

 

my friend,

you were, even then,

and now,

a MAN