A Tough Guy's Recompense

Stoic, is my demeanor Masculine through and through I’m as tough as the tough guys come More manly than all of you Emotions are for sissies My tears had never flown Catastrophes, I greeted with smiles Heartbreak I’d never shown She was all of five years old The sweetest child I’d ever seen To be told that she is dying of cancer Was a diagnosis too obscene Forty years of pent up feelings I had learned to keep inside Putting up a manly façade Not even knowing what I did hide And then the door flew open As wide as wide could be The dam holding back my humanity Broke down inside of me I shaved my head to be like her I held her little hand I would cry and laugh and giggle with her Every moment that I can Being a man doesn’t mean pretending That your heart cannot be touched It means being there to share your love Helping others when life gets rough It took a five year old, little girl To really show me how to be a man The courage she had to fight her fight Proved her to be tougher than I am I no longer hold back tears I say, “I love you” all the time Showing the world exactly what I feel I no longer view as a hideous crime I wept at her funeral And, I’ve cried every night since That door remains wide open A tough guy’s recompense