[vintage UtR] Dear John (for the brothers)

Dear You,

I told myself that it was because of my father that I fell in love with you.

I loved him in the unconditional way children typically love—without acknowledgement or understanding of flaws.  My father’s flaws became part of my definition of all men.

Once I stopped loving you all by default, I started loving you out of obligation.

According to history you were wounded and incapable of functioning at full capacity due to those wounds.  I wanted to love you to wholeness.  So I would not participate in any behavior that might further infect those wounds.  No “brothers ain’t shit” poems would come from my pen; I turned up my nose at that venom.

I could not bring myself to say anything to or about you that I thought might reduce or call into question your masculinity.  I figured that was being done to you already from all…