I used to look just like you

I used to look just like you:

Smoking cigarette after cigarette

In the smokepit at work

Sitting, sometimes,

On the nasty rickety old bench

That nobody ever cleaned

With all my friends around me, guy friends

Colleagues

Talking shit about women

Telling lies about what we’d do if we were in fucking charge

Letting loose the odd homophobic comment or

Having a laugh at the expense of trans people because

We could, and those people weren’t people, anyway-

At least they weren’t men like us

Huddled around the reeking silver butt can

Glancing over our shoulders, hoping the boss wasn’t around

Nursing our hangovers

And laughing off our task list, or whatever

Because we were men, God damn it.

I used to look just like you:

Those hateful, ignorant, ubiquitous comments

About anyone group of people that wasn’t us

Got under my skin and stung me a little.

Over time they stung a lot.

Like cigarette burns

Or dry puking after a bender

Or cutting myself and hiding/promoting the scars

Or when you punched me in the ribs

Because that’s what men do, God damn it

And if you can’t take it then you will fold up and die when the shit hits the fan.

What about you?

Where will you be when the shit hits the fan?

The stinger? The stung? The razor? The boss?

The thing you fear the most?

The tranny? The fag? The bitch?

I used to look just like you:

We share a skin, for better or worse; we ball up our fists and we can unball them