Who is 'A Man'?

A question so ordinary, it tempts everyone to answer.

Photo by Earl Wilcox on Unsplash

Who is a man?
Everyone’s got an answer,
an opinion to it—
the kid on the corner,
the girl with too much hope,
the woman who has seen it all,
and the man himself,
drunk on what he thinks he knows.

Just like their pains, love, struggle, and misery,
there’s nothing truer,
nothing mightier than what they’ve to say.

**

Care to know what I think?
I wouldn’t care waiting for what you’ve to say.
I’ve learned the futility of explanations.
That’s what a self-aware man does, I guess—
ponders about things which might seem pointless,
the things that couldn’t be,
but only when he’s alone.

**

There’s no one better at pretending than a man.
Not even a woman.
They eventually quit the act.
But men—we live it, breathe it, and even die in it.
Generations and lives pass,
playing the same lousy part.

**

A man is cursed to live it all,
from the moments he thinks he knows it all,
to the dust of the broken illusion on his hands.
From the moments he feels the most important person alive,
to being humbled into nothing more than
a collection of atoms, some skin, spine, spit, and old thoughts.
The lucky ones get to live in patterns that are unique.

**

There’s no end to the things a man does
to belong, to feel deserved—
to a woman, to a dream,
even to a version of himself,
someone lost years ago in the mirror.
There’s no end to it.

**

There’s no one more desperate than a man.
I learnt this from my father.
With age, he’s started to fumble in his act.
I could see the glimpses on his face.
He covered it soon enough.
I think it’s my eyes that give up.
But they’re quite small, that’s what everyone said.

**

“It’s your best feature,” she said once.
“As if you’re hiding a lot of mischief,
a lot of what you are.
Your smile’s what gives you away,” she concluded.

**

In the chaos of the cosmos,
the architect that a man is,
he builds invisible cities for himself,
out of longing, with those he’s lost.
There’s nothing holier than his what ifs in that land.

**

In the heart of mine,
there’s her.
The one with quiet eyes
and hands I could never hold.
She still turns the clay on her wheel.
A lot can be said from the wrinkles on her face,
the silence dammed on her lips.

**

The man and the lady do not speak,
their silence’s fluent enough.
For they understand the language of the winds,
the breeze, the storms, the rain, the clouds,
and everything else.

**

He did have a lot to say,
and so did she.
A smile breaks her face,
his eyes hang on to it.
The universe folds,
and for a moment,
He thinks he’s forgiven.

**

For once, words betray him
as he stands still.
The man’s tired
from all the silences and preaching
he’s had to share with the world.
And so is she.

**

There’s a mirage of the world he imagines,
something he’s sure exists.
It’s a man’s curse,
he keeps walking away,
in search of that one probable reality
that ought to be pretty enough
to hold them as one.
The one where it worked out.
The one where he said the right thing.

This belief helps him move on
from the ache that remains.

**

But in that moment,
he holds that long-lost smile again.
His eyes give it away again.
He never knew
something that stings
could be so peaceful,
so pretty.

**

She goes back to her rotating clay,
her fingers playing around it,
in and out of each other, forever circling,
shaping something beautiful
from the mess left behind.

**

“Come when you do, we shall stay,” she finally speaks.
I almost believed her.
“You’re my favourite,
the one that broke away.”

**

The longing in her words is enough
to make him love everything,
what he’d become,
and the things he couldn’t be.

**

There is no one more devious than a man.
We hide in our cities,
burying what could’ve been beautiful,
what was once as soft as that rotating clay.

**

Everyone calls it strength,
and there’s no end to it.
That’s the whole damn story.
That’s all I’ve got to say.

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