THE UNCOMMON MAN

To every man who’s ever been looked in the eye and told he’s too much:

You who left the fold before they folded it off you

You who came out inventing your own how-to-scale-a-wall with on consonants

Let them call you different

Let them bait the minnows of your heart

Show them your heart is a school of fish, a solar system of all moons

When asked, say, “My heart is always causing the mating season.”

When they call you full of yourself, say, “Yes, I do breathe better air.”

Breathe in their scorn and breathe out Eldorado.

Let them come with their glassy, cutting smiles

Let them come with their saw-blade hands

Let them choose easier guys

You’re not easy.

You don’t display your sexual prowess in cubicles filled with self-deduced, open-minded criminals jeering you on

You’re not easy because you’re not like some who date below the line, simply because Madonna and Julia Roberts paved the way for them.

When he tells you he is tossing your broken root out his open window and holds up to the glass a more common man, Surrender.

Gracefully surrender the pretend olive branch of his intimacy while you’ve always stood in shoes too small for you

When he says he is easier to handle, live with, attach to, fuck, I want you to remember your neck

The way it ascends space – and always has – above the rest

You were brought here for so much more than walking two-by-two up a ship plank.

Anyone common enough to go coward at the depth of his love for you wasn’t meant to walk beside you

Love should not have us stoop to fit a portrait.

Love should have us elevate our infinity

So, Uncommon man, don’t settle for less.

Instead, stride towards the ever shedding horizon

Take his example of renewal.

Wear your grief like a party dress!

Remember, the sun’s only lover is not the Earth.

She’s got moons on every planet.

So, go live in the liquid bowl of gold you were handed for a skin

Uncommon man, let the easier man pick up the socks

Embrace your splendid singularity

And look to the rest of us Uncommon men, standing in the centres, holding up the reins.

Written by Vhar