What about
Those boys
Whose hurt is
Merely guidance
In lieu of
Absent mothers
Where fathers
Pick up slack

Believing
Nothing hurts
As long as
Feelings swallowed
Are answers
To their pressures
When denying
Sadness builds

Agreeing
Bouncing balls
Can rid them
Of this silence
To suffer pain
So lonely
On cold and angry
Streets

Beating
Desperate means
With fists
Into submission
Assuming kids
More fragile
Are targets
Worth their grief

Near courts
Of asphalt dreams
With hoops held high
Elusive
Like survival
Leaving winning
The only answer
Making sense

Excluded
From these friends
By fear
Of being needy
Afraid to
Hug or kiss them
Or say that
Love is real

As men
Teach other males
Frailty
Is some sickness
And trait
Left just for women
Which embodies
What they fear

Resenting
Female ways
Like laws of heart
Made certain
Through action
Showing kindness
Is far from
Being weak.

– J. Pigno