No One Needs to Know

My brother said it almost as a footnote —

he'd been going to the gym at five in the morning

for six months.

Hadn't told anyone.

Didn't want to be that guy.

You know the guy.

I laughed. He laughed.

We talked about something else.

I said I'd call him back.

I sat in the parking garage

with both hands on the wheel, engine off,

the fluorescents making everything

the color of a low-grade headache.

I thought about the things I do

that I don't mention.

The trying I've gotten very good

at making invisible —

to other people first,

then to myself,

which I've been calling dignity

for long enough

that it might just be that now.

Or it might be something else.

I don't know how you tell the difference

between a man who doesn't need the credit

and a man who's afraid to ask for it,

when they look the same from outside

and feel the same from inside

and neither one is going to say it.

My brother sounded good.

The lights in the garage don't flicker.

They just hold their particular ugly

and ask nothing back.