We are often our own demise
And I am becoming procrastination
But you are so often so wrong about you and you don't even know it
Self-identified as particleboard, paper maché, duct taped
And we are wrong, and right, and confused
It's complicated, but so is a star
A flower, a quasar, a friendship, a marriage
May we be refuge for the complicated
And as for me, well, I have zipped up my emotions into this dusty duffle bag I've aptly named poetry
And I'll be on my merry way as soon as my pride turns me loose
And unmangle the last morsel of manhood I can produce
Ma'am, I seem to have misplaced my confidence
Last place I've seen it, it was at the altar of your love
It's complicated
And I am becoming complicated
We may scratch ourselves raw to erase the image we were made in
Smoke, snort, sex or drown out the silence
We may waste our life-savings on makeovers
To try to rhinoplast our daddy's nose away
But no nip, no tuck could cut away the sense of obligation
We are becoming what we're not
But what we are is inescapable
You are a masterpiece fighting to be a silly selfie with a hideous filter
You are heaven's handmade calligraphy
Slumming it among papyrus fonts
You are the complete and perfect works
Of a perfect and eternal poet laureate
With a laundry list of identity issues
And sometimes your plumbing don't match your urges
But your femininity it forced a force field that protected our posterity
Your masculinity, it mustered up moxey
To conquer mountains for our families
You are the rightful heirs to not just a kingdom
But a universe and you have your daddy's eyes
Stop being so traitorous
You are Revelation revealed
Pyramid constructors, conductors, conduits of lightning
Yet you speak and you breathe arsenic carcinogenics
And it causes car sickness
These scars are our witness
To love hard is hard living, but it's life
It's who you are
It's messy and uncomfortable
And complicated
But so is a star, and parenting, childbirth, and love
And us
And us