We are often our own demise

And I am becoming procrastination

But you are so often so wrong about you and you don't even know it

Self-identified as particleboard, paper maché, duct taped

And we are wrong, and right, and confused

It's complicated, but so is a star

A flower, a quasar, a friendship, a marriage

May we be refuge for the complicated

And as for me, well, I have zipped up my emotions into this dusty duffle bag I've aptly named poetry

And I'll be on my merry way as soon as my pride turns me loose

And unmangle the last morsel of manhood I can produce

Ma'am, I seem to have misplaced my confidence

Last place I've seen it, it was at the altar of your love

It's complicated

And I am becoming complicated

We may scratch ourselves raw to erase the image we were made in

Smoke, snort, sex or drown out the silence

We may waste our life-savings on makeovers

To try to rhinoplast our daddy's nose away

But no nip, no tuck could cut away the sense of obligation

We are becoming what we're not

But what we are is inescapable

You are a masterpiece fighting to be a silly selfie with a hideous filter

You are heaven's handmade calligraphy

Slumming it among papyrus fonts

You are the complete and perfect works

Of a perfect and eternal poet laureate

With a laundry list of identity issues

And sometimes your plumbing don't match your urges

But your femininity it forced a force field that protected our posterity

Your masculinity, it mustered up moxey

To conquer mountains for our families

You are the rightful heirs to not just a kingdom

But a universe and you have your daddy's eyes

Stop being so traitorous

You are Revelation revealed

Pyramid constructors, conductors, conduits of lightning

Yet you speak and you breathe arsenic carcinogenics

And it causes car sickness

These scars are our witness

To love hard is hard living, but it's life

It's who you are

It's messy and uncomfortable

And complicated

But so is a star, and parenting, childbirth, and love

And us

And us