The Costume
boys on a basketball court, pulling masculinity tight. this is how it’s enforced — not by fathers, not by teachers, but by boys terrified of being the one left uncostumed.
I see teenage boys playing basketball, the costume of masculinity pulled tight.
Sweating.
Walking with performed confidence.
Still pimply. Still awkward.
Pretending.
Like cubs trying to be lions.
They don’t know how unsafe this costume feels to girls, to women.
They don’t take it off.
They don’t hang it up.
They don’t trade it.
It breaks them.
Tears at their inner child, their wounds.
But the performance stays intact.
What if these boys knew the cost of the performance?
What if we told them they could be anything— dorky, feminine, awkward, slow, fast, weird, funny, not funny, smart.
On the corner, there’s another boy.
He’s counting the score.
Serious jacket. Quiet posture.
He’s decided numbers will be his masculinity.
He will show up through competence.
Through steadiness.
Not as an ape.
Not as a predator.
Just present.
And then there’s another one.
The one they bully.
Push around.
Because he’s not the player.
Not the scorer.
He doesn’t want the performance.
He doesn’t want the costume.
So they seat him in the corner.
Throw popcorn until he pouts.
Laugh when his face reddens.
Make sport of his softness.
Of his quiet.
Of whatever didn’t harden in time.
They call it joking.
They call it bonding.
But it’s training.
Teaching him where safety ends.
Where belonging costs him himself.
Teaching the others what to destroy before it reminds them of what they lost.
This is how masculinity is enforced.
Not by fathers.
Not by teachers.
But by boys, terrified of being the one left uncostumed.