Samuel Kerby

Samuel Kerby Poems

The Best Poem Of Samuel Kerby

Just A Boy - What Becomes Of Toxic Masculinity.

Red and blue lights spiral like a carousel
Outside that mother's home.
And parasol propped on stand, unused
As she shuffles out into the rain
Dragged steps and a strident voice,
She looks out at her poor thing, and time slows-
‘He's just a boy! '

Her boy, she saw him off on the first day of school
And he cried, but he waddled right on in.
He took a look back, hiccuped, smiled, and the rest is history
She remembers it like yesterday.
Might as well be yesterday, when everything bleeds together.

Do you remember when his dad found him picking flowers?
Told him that's for girls.

Do you remember when he came home with
that drawing of the geranium that sat on the windowsill?
He drew it himself, colored it too.
Colored no more than the nine bruises you found all over his body.
His classmates must not like flowers.

Do you remember when he broke his leg on the court?
He never wanted to play basketball. But he mangled himself anyway.
Amidst the writhing pain, he locked eyes with you and dad and seemed to say
‘Am I man enough yet? '

And then he met the girl.
Do you remember listening in on pa' telling him
How to treat a girl, how to own a girl?
Did his father teach him how to own you?

So maybe on that rainy night
the red and blue lights came from the car
To cart him away to the grave. A grave which was open
Since the other boys spat slurs like bullets, burning and
Withering away that once geranium filled cranium,
Till he leapt from the roof.
And ma' sees him off like it's the first day of school, but she's screaming
‘He's just a boy! '

Or maybe that's not the right story.

Maybe red and blue lights came from the car
To cart him away to high hell, cuz hell his hands
On her throat throttled her last groan out as she
slipped
into the rain
and the dark
Frantic eyes and bloody hands, whispering,
‘Am I man enough yet? '
And yet ma' stands, screaming alone in strident tone, sobbing-
‘He's just a boy! '

And now which would you rather have, ma'
Cuz you're crying, but pa' said boys- men don't take no for an answer
Pa' told him to teach her a lesson like all the lessons you've taken before
Pa stands in the window looking down, and maybe he thinks he's finally made a man.

Just a boy. Just a boy…
But was he?
Was he just a boy, or was he a monster you all made?
Was he a boy, or every hard part of his father's bare knuckles?
Was he a boy, or a hung rack of every name and slur thrown his way?
Was he a boy, or the image of a man you all tried to make of him?
Just a boy?

So whether your boy is crying in a concrete cell,
Still wondering if he were man enough,
Or picking flowers up in heaven
Cuz there's nobody to hurt him there
He's gone.

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