My guts on the floor

like sausage links

keeping

my insides together

and a sharp knife

in my left hand.

No war

to know

what’s in there.

I threaten to take a journey

but the journey, is not a threat

it’s real, and that, is different

like a bomb

and not an imaginary one

like a terrorist, who wants to do something about it.

I sit in comfortable warm rooms

and think about the damp woods.

Nature is pleasant

when the fear isn’t there.

Man must test himself, to know what he’s made of.

A woman I knew

understood

that I doubted my manhood

and she told me, “Your friend is a man, but you… not really.”

I knew what she was doing

so I didn’t take it personal

so I didn’t say…

“You used to be pretty, but now you’re 45, and it looks like you’ve been used several times. You hang-out at the bars in Seattle, and no man will date you.”

The truth doesn’t need to be said; it only needs to be known, by the one unafraid of it.