For Colored Boys

Confession: guys get just as depressed as girls. I know, people don't admit it. Correction, guys don't admit it. But we do. We hurt deeper than most, and then bury it inside our heart. Half the reason that most men can't love anyone else successfully is because we have so much pain hidden within the very fiber of our being. Yeah, men get depressed. And we don't know what to do. After lifetimes of hiding our emotions, depression is usually the last condition we think that we should be caught dead with. It's weakness. It's some part of our body, mind, or spirit admitting it is not as fortified as our demeanor would suggest. So when depression comes, it comes hard. Settles deep. And rests heavy on our shoulders. Most of the time mine comes and I feel it wash over me in a white hot anger. It ripples through my psyche and muddles all my thoughts until absolute silence is even distracting to whatever I'm doing. It makes me feel deranged. Placeless. Sad. And out of that sadness, comes a violent streak. Call it what you will. A self-inflicted wound. A lashing out irrationally. But whatever it is, it's a defense mechanism. A part of me, that can't understand itself. And it sits inside of me, like a dormant earthquake awaiting to disrupt my very being and corrupt the moral fiber of who I am.

I know it might not make sense to some of the ladies out there. But hear me out. Women are oftentimes labeled, "emotional", "unstable", sometimes even "crazy". Because they have learned not to hide what really is going on in their heart and head. To some extent they can and will, but for the most part women as a whole are better at expressing themselves, in my opinion. And men, we have a bit more difficulty. Under the premise since we were very young, male children were always groomed to "Suck it up." "Be a man." "Little boys don't cry, Malcolm." I remember being told that on the T-ball field. In middle school after a fight with a bully. And I saw that same horrible ideology usher my little cousin Kareem in, on the peewee football field. When he took a really nasty tackle on a third down against a player twice his size. I watched the coach lift him from the ground. Pat him on both shoulders quickly. Yank his helmet forward and say "Suck it up." And then he threw my cousin right back in the line of fire on the line of scrimmage. I was disgusted.

That's how all men have been taught to deal with our fleshly weaknesses. Instead of admitting we have them and asking the Big Guy Upstairs to strengthen those weak links, we have been shown that it is best to deny we have those points at all. And to hell with anyone who dares highlight their existence. A generation of highly combustible aerosol cans that have never bothered to press within ourselves enough to realize, we're all full of hot air.

Depression, in guys, comes from that moment when we sat next to a flame to bright, a conflagration too hot and we exploded. We landed in a world of hurt, because we never took the time to strip down to the bone and recognize that there was fat beneath our muscle, leaking marrow between our bones, and a broken heart behind our puffed out chest. That's where I land some days. And I find my testosterone driving me to do all sorts of things. Work out angrily for three and four hours at a time. Screaming at the top of my lungs when no one's around. Playing every sport I can find, though it hardly helps since I'm by myself. And diving into an immense world of videogames to numb the sting of this world's harsh truth.

The truth that screams itself into existence and whispers darker conceptions in your sleep. The truth that you're not all you would hope to be. You're not all you could be. You hate yourself sometimes. And when you stand next to some of your fellow men, you feel..........................inadequate. The sad truth. You, a man. Me, a man. And I feel less than. Downtrodden. And I discover it might be okay, but only after I realize that they've been lying to me all along. And maybe "they" don't even know what being a man's all about themselves. Maybe "they" stopped up their own tears to protect their hearts from a hurt better revealed proudly. And my letting them go....wouldn't be so bad. I'm alone. I'm sad. But, I want to be better. And here come the waterworks.