*[original by @lucassjoness](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DANrj9AMLAw/?igsh=MWQ1ZGUxMzBkMA==) Transcribed this because I was moved by it and wanted to try reading it aloud with a different cadence* "Boys are much softer than anyone thinks" and girls hear that and say "Nah, fuck him". And then they have boys and realize something. That their boy's born sweet and gentle. Loving. Then the cognitive dissonance tries to kick in. But the fact is boys mould to the box boys build. And if the box is sharp and [[violence]]-filled then the soft and the gentle in the boy gets killed and the boy gets mad and resents how he feels. Then the box is a coffin. And the thing gets sealed. And the boys we're all copying leave us in their wills an inherited anger. And lacking in skills of emotional management the boys get billed with the debt of the trauma and forever it swills round in your bottle, or pint, or pills and metastasizes till the boy gets ill then behaves like a prick to all of the girls and it is your damage to fix, not hers and the damage is done but you don't have the words. So you say "Boys are softer than anyone thinks" and the girls say "Err, yeah… nah fuck him" and around we go in this strange cyclone. But there is some light and here is some hope: First we must not harm any hand we hold. We must say "help" when the night's too cold and "I think how I feel is… kind of alone and scared. Uncared-for. Self-sabotage prone. Like I might do something dumb but I won't." Then we must respond with "Yeah, man, I know I've been there too. And the last time won't be the last time. That's just how it goes." But the more we say it the more we show we don't have to die just to feel at home. The boy is a forest. And a fire. He is both. And he must never burn faster than he grows. The boy is a boy living on your road and he can't know love if he's never been told.