Masculinity is not Patriarchy

Patriarchy is not a man.

It is not the gentle callused palm

of your grandfather shelling beans

or the quiet of your father,

humming as he built your bookshelf.

Patriarchy is the narrative dysbiosis

a monoculture seeded

by fear of rot,

by men told to prune their softness,

uproot the flowers from their beards,

and forget the way home

to the wet, loamy forest of feeling.

Masculinity, in its wildness,

is mycelial.

It spreads sideways.

It feeds what is dying.

It builds networks of care

beneath the soil of what is spoken.

But patriarchy?

It is the fungicide.

The glyphosate on your tongue

that tells you to speak only in straight lines.

It says:

dominate.

isolate.

own.

It cuts down the tree

and sells you the paper

with your own myth printed on it.

Masculinity,

true masculinity,

smells like leaf mold and river musk.

It bruises its knees in worship.

It weeps over roadkill.

It holds its daughter with trembling strength

and whispers prayers to the moon

because no one taught it not to.

Patriarchy builds fences.

Masculinity sings to the compost.

One seeks profit,

the other offers presence.

Let us not confuse the tyrant

with the tender.

Let us remember that the masculine

is not a skyscraper

but a grove of trembling aspens

rooted to each other in the dark.