To the Boys

I've known thirty-year-old boys

and seventeen-year-old men

because being a man 

has less to do with how many years

you've spent shaving your neck

than how you treat those who look at you

like you put the stars in the sky

how you protect the broken

and how you decide who to respect.

Because if you treat them like the dirt under your feet,

talk to and about them 

like they're slabs of meat to be bought,

you're a boy.

Be a man