POETRY | TRAUMA | MASCULINITY

Scars Like Fathers

Toxic Masculinity, cruelty, and inhumanity in the locker room and beyond

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Image: AI-generated using Adobe Firefly and modified by the author; Poetry: written by Tristan Robert Lange, Human-authored.

Masochistic memories memorialized
Around sadistic school boys
Serving up sanitation pads
To the locker room losers,
The boys with the smallest tally hoes;
Like “little Joe”,
So small they said he’d have to
“Pay a ho just to get a blow.”
Or, there’s Bobby “Spits”,
Who couldn’t get it up
Before the spritz.
Sadly, there was “Tommy Ton”,
Whom they’d always shun;
That shit ended — BANG —
With the sound of a gun.
Yeah — no fun,
But at least the boys got by,
Grew up —
Real mature guys.
Mikey, Billy, Chad:
They weren’t all that bad.
At least they all seem glad,
That, like their dads,
Their kids fit right in,
Being raised in the shadows
Of their fathers’ sins.