The system impressed it upon him first, long before the boy could shape questions with his tongue. It was in the rigid shoulders of men who filled rooms with their absence. In the rough clasp of hands teaching him how to strike before he could heal. Power wasn’t inherited; it was proven — again and again. A ritual of conquest burned into flesh and memory.
To be a man was to hold dominion. Over women, over land, over the trembling parts of himself that dared to soften. Vulnerability was a trespass punishable by exile. The unspoken contract was clear — control or be consumed.
But the weight of that inheritance bent spines, even as it crowned heads.
Manhood became a mask that devoured the face beneath it — a constant reckoning between the hunger to belong and the exhaustion of performance. He saw it reflected in the hollow eyes of elders, men who sat atop thrones of brittle pride, their silence louder than their war cries. The more they claimed, the more it consumed them.
Patriarchy’s greatest trick wasn’t in the way it shackled women. It was in how it chained men to the illusion that freedom lay in dominance. The tighter they held the reins, the more the ground crumbled beneath them.
But what if manhood wasn’t a yoke?
What if it could be the wind that carried seeds, not the axe that felled trees? He wondered if strength could blossom in spaces untouched by fear — if it could be found in the willingness to lift rather than crush, to cradle rather than conquer.
It was a dangerous thought. One that smelled of revolt yet tasted like truth.
And so, he carried it carefully — like a spark in dry grass — watching, waiting, wondering if the world was ready to burn or to grow anew.
Exile. The unspoken contract is clear—control or be consumed.”
