ridiculous male bravado
boys
used to have these standoffs
in high school
we’d go to some undisclosed location
like a bus stop or the park
the combatants would stand face to face
glare and try to look hard
maybe one pushed the other
and the other pushed back
to tell the truth they looked scared
like they didn’t want to hurt anyone or get hurt
but were caught up in this ridiculous male bravado
kill or be killed in america
there were never any girls there
they were off being told a different kind of lie
after about fifteen minutes of this sideshow
all the hoopla began to die down
the fighters couldn’t remember
what they were mad about anyway
and one by one
we walked away from the stalled melee
slinking back into our own
little internal dramas
pacifists anew.
About the Author: John Grochalski is the author of the poetry collections, The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), and The Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Press, 2018). He is also the author of the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016). Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, in the part that voted for Trump, so may God have mercy on his soul.
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Image Credit: Wilhelm Trübner “Scuffling Boys” (1872) Public Domain
As It Ought To Be 
This all happened to me in 5th grade at recess, only in a little while we would both be called up to principals’ office.
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