To the Men: When Do You Breathe?

Okay, so here’s the thing, I’ve been thinking (dangerous, I know). And honestly? A lot of men are walking around carrying things they don’t even have language for. Emotional stuff. Heavy stuff. Generational stuff. The kind of stuff their daddies didn’t talk about, and their boys don’t ask about.

And I’m not saying every man is walking around like a lost little boy trapped in a grown man’s body...
But, okay maybe a few are.

The world handed men, especially Black men, a script that suffocates:
Be strong. Don’t cry. Provide. Don’t complain. Protect. Don’t fall apart.

Sir… when do you breathe?

It’s no wonder some of y’all are grinding yourselves into dust just trying to feel like you’re enough. And the minute you try to heal, soften, go to therapy, pick up a paintbrush or heaven forbid a journal, folks start side-eyeing. Suddenly you’re “not a real man”? Please.

You mean to tell me a man can’t light a candle, cry to Frank Ocean, and still fix the sink?
Lawd, be for real.

What breaks my heart is how often we only value men when they’re performing. Like their worth lives in how many babies they can make, bills they can pay, or crises they can clean up. That’s not love. That’s a transaction.

But I get it. I really do. Because behind all that pressure is just a human trying to be seen. Trying to be safe.

So yeah, maybe I’m a little emotional today (don’t judge me, I cried at a dog food commercial earlier), but I just want to say this:

Men deserve softness too.
They deserve spaces where they don’t have to compete or perform or pretend.
They deserve to just be.

Breathe, brother. Breathe.