my brothers.

my brothers are pressured in school

when they can’t be fast enough, it makes them uncool

because their competitors are being pushed in other ways

if they’re not the fastest, it makes them gay

the name-callers are unsafe in their skin

because they don’t know where they fit in

not wanting to be seen as insecure,

they want to be known as something more

something like the girl who’s called a whore

because she’s beautiful and pursued

and nothing about her is subdued

strutting her stuff like a raw carrot,

spray tanned and talking away like a parrot

about the nerdy new kid

and his widowed mom who just moved in

as well as of all her classmates

which ones are fat, which ones she’ll date

and the guy she loves who is nothing but trouble

cheating with her best friend, trying to get his double

trying to do it just like his older brother does

who never grew up getting told by their mother to just

keep his eyes on his grades,

instead his mind’s on the game

three priorities remain— cash, grass and drugs

since it keeps him cool with his friends, the thugs

until they cut him off and they cut him out

until his future’s gone by the time he’s home,

family clinging tightly to the things he’s ever owned

friends and families getting torn apart

because somebody didn’t want to have a heart

somehow it became easier to hate than to love

and it became the norm to pretend to be tough,

vile, violent and selfish in every way

who was the one who paved it out this way?