Being a child
I accepted this distinction
without question,
struggling
to learn the lessons presented.
It was here
that I began to link
aggresiveness, harshness, and distance
with manhood;
while associating
tenderness and passivity
with femininity.
It would be many years
before I began to even suspect
what an insidious lie this was.
In the mean time,
I wanted approval from my father.
So I tried to invent myself
in his image,
accepting his vocabulary
of the male body
as my natural inheritance.
Much of my childhood
was spent trying to emulate
this language.
But I proved to be a poor student.
I was a small and introspective boy,
not physically dominating like my father.
I grew up with the certainty
that he was deeply disappointed in me.
By my . . .