Notes

Bro
Broski
Brosef
Broham
Bruh

My brother
My man
My mate
My dude
My dawg
My buddy

My homie
Homie G
Home slice
Home skillet
That’s my boy

My wingman
My pal
Paisano
Mi amigo

The vocabulary of modern male friendship,
uttered over handshakes,
daps and pounds,
bro fists and man hugs.
Spoken sometimes
awkward and off-key
when I go for the handshake
and you go the for fist bump
and we do this strange dance of men
trying to love each other
in a world of “Whoa hey, no homo bro.”

Where anytime men show one another
genuine feelings of gratitude,
appreciation, and affection –
“Uhoh, we got a bromance going on!”
and suddenly I am James Franco
and you are Seth Rogan
in some Hollywood buddy flick,
where in the final scene
we look at each other and say:
“Dude, I… love you bro”

How that word “love”
falls clumsy from our tongues
when not said in the service
of getting us laid.

Perhaps this is why conversations
between many male friends
rarely go deeper than the game,
the job, the beer we are drinking,
because when feelings
are defined as feminine,
so many men construct
masculine walls of muscle
lest anyone doubt their manhood.

Walk into any bar in America
you will find men laughing
calling each other “Hey douchebag”
hollering at some “bitches”
trying to impress the boys.
I want to express to these men
what moves inside this heart & head,
this life we share together, my brother.

Even in our own homes,
we carve out our manly territory:
the garage, the tool shed,
where no one else may enter.
Our man caves
are just fortresses of solitude
that do not make us Superman,
just distant fathers
half-ass husbands
and superficial friends.

I want to be a better brother than that.

And the Lord said unto Cain,
Where is Able thy brother?
And he said, I know not.
Am I my brother’s keeper?

I want us to be better brothers than that.

I want to end this legacy
of shallow, empty men.
For what is the last 2,000 years of history
if not the long, sad story
of the dangerous emptiness of men?
How so many of us
filled the spaces inside us
with bloody fist and scorched earth,
bullet-ridden conquest,
the taking, without permission,
of so much that did not belong to us:
land, bodies, history.

We hollow men, in suits of armor
or suits and ties,
empty inside of the only two things
that make life worth living:
the ability to love
and be loved in return.

I want to be a better brother than that.

I want to love these men
I call my brothers,
feed the soil where grows
the dreams of my brothers,
so when the Lord asks
I may proudly say:

These are my brothers
and I will always, always
be their keeper.