be a fucking human for once…

there’s nothing wrong
with showing true emotion
you aren’t lacking in subtlety
if you can’t hold back pain
be a fucking human for once!
newsflash, at thirty-something
years old — it’s called being a person
get pissed off, yell if you need to
you can get mad at somebody
and it doesn’t mean they’ll go away
you won’t get any kind of merit
badge at the end of this life
for all the battles you didn’t fight
the world has enough liars and fakes
there’s enough reality suppression
to go around — feel what you feel!
express what you need to express…
you won’t be accused of being
overly sentimental or weak…
it’s not a lapse to communicate
sincere anger in the face of injustice
some people really do deserve
to get their asses chewed out…
fight the good fight, my friend
bitch and moan, go down screaming,
be the fucking person you are!
flesh and blood, piss and vinegar,
sweat and ugly tears be damned
I’d rather see you real than hiding

Garbage Notes:

This poem, pure and simple, is about not holding back genuine emotion. It’s part of what makes us human. We hurt, struggle, we cry, we get angry. It’s all part of living a life on this earth.

Personally, I’ve always had a hard time expressing negative emotions. To cope with life, I’ve been forced to be kind of stoic. Because at an early age I learned that often expressing raw unprocessed feelings, like fear or anger or embarrassment tended to make things worse rather than better.

But here’s the thing. Holding emotions back only makes things seem better in the short term. It doesn’t help you in the long run. It alienates you from people. But worse off, it disconnects you from your self.

I think, for me, the hardest emotion to express outwardly, to this day, is anger. I’ve always been sort of rewarded and validated for playing the role of the peacemaker. For being the calm and easygoing presence in the room. But that belies true torment, and sincere angst that I often feel when I am unable to get the things I need.

So, that’s my battle. Learning how to be outwardly more real, to people’s faces. And I don’t mean in my writing or in my poetry. That’s always been a necessary outlet for me. And in many ways, the rawness and the realness in my prose, tends to be closer to how I genuinely feel about things, than my outward disposition actually shows.

So be a fucking human for once. It might be ugly. People might walk away—the ones who can’t handle it. But you’ll realize that the ones who are still there for you in the end, they appreciate you. And they’re probably the only ‘real’ humans you want sticking around anyway. The others will just make your life worse. And you don’t have time for that.

Franco Amati 2026

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