Bottle 1⁄4 Empty
I am a crybaby.
---
When I was a toddler I used to cry a lot.
It was very refreshing.
I look back on images of me back then
And I was always smiling
I was happy.
That is not to say I’m not happy now
I still am,
Just not as much as I used to be.
I remember the first time someone told me I wasn’t allowed to cry. It was the beginning of 2nd grade
I was struggling to do a task
I can’t remember what I was doing
But I couldn’t do it,
So, I started to sob
The teacher came to me and asked me what’s wrong
And I told her “I can’t do it”
And she replied
“It is ok if you can’t do it but
You don’t need to cry.”
was looked down upon.
Seen as weak.
Boys don’t cry!
They tackle everything head on!
I couldn’t just stop being a crybaby
So I developed a way to not cry
To just hold it in.
It worked.
I didn’t cry.
They stopped viewing me as weak.
But every time I felt sad,
I needed to store my emotions somewhere
But where could I store them?
Ah yes, I know,
A bottle,
I will bottle my emotions.
Every day I would write down my feelings and put them in a bottle. I kept the bottle on my desk.
Then I put it on my shelf because it occupied too much space. My mom would walk into my room and see this bottle
And she would ask
“What is that?”
And I replied
“Oh that, It’s nothing.”
My system worked
Until 6th grade
When the bottle spilt.
6th grade was very different from anything I’ve ever experienced. It was overwhelming,
So, I cried.
I remember, so many people telling me to
“Man up”
But I didn’t know how to
Man up.
I knew I couldn’t just keep bottling my emotions,
So, the solution I came up with this time was to simply
not care.
This way I could reduce the amount going into the bottle.
My bottle is small.
---
I can’t handle much.
---
Every now and then, when it overflows
I empty some of it onto my pillow.
Every time I always empty it until its 3⁄4 full,
So I can go back and act like nothing happened.
----
When someone asks
“how do you feel”
I respond with
“I’m fine”
Every time.
Sometimes when I feel exceptionally well I say I’m feeling great
Then they reply with
“Why”
-
I panic for a moment
-
Before saying something dull like
XYZ happened.
---
Occasionally, at night I take my bottle down from my shelf I place it on my desk
And stare at it
And it stares back.
And sometimes I ask it
Why do you deserve to stay bottled, why can’t people know about you” And it says
“You did this, you detached me from you”
This is just my story of a problem,
A problem that every boy on this planet experiences. Some end up taking a different path
And express their feelings openly
(I envy them)
But to most, they end up walking down a similar path to mine.
I want to meet with the CEO of emotion and ask them
“Why do us boys have to be “Men”?”
I don’t want to be a man
But everyone tells me
I HAVE to be
a man.
I am a crybaby,
But I can’t be one.
If I get offended I have to say it’s ok,
If I get lost
I can’t ask for directions,
I can’t get scared of a bug Because it is not
Manly.
To hide our emotions,
Is to hide what makes us human.
Dehumanizing us,
What good does it bring?
We men were not meant to be disposable soldiers on the battlefield, We men were not meant to be killers,
We were not meant to be apart from being human
But to be a part of being human
When people ask:
Why do men have a higher suicide rates
Or why men are more depressed
Or why we live shorter lives
Some say it's because we are bigger, Some say it because of some scientific reasoning Or its because we don’t live as humans
Or maybe its because we are viewed as Disposable objects.
We are humans too.
It seems like being a man is separate from being human Aren't we men human too.
The world teaches boys to bottle and store their emotions And because of that, I need to keep my bottle 1⁄4 empty.