Tell me child what's the matter why don't you ever smile. Every-time I see you your face is hidden Beneath that frown. Has someone hurt you? Or Can't you see? What is it boy c'mon you can tell me. I'll keep it a secret pinky promise I swear! His eyes told the tale for his voice was made to fail. With his hand on my shoulder he expressed his thoughts. Sorrow, pain, and judgement, but most of all loss. I couldn't understand it this child whom I thought what just a little tot. He knew so much more then I ever could see, his blue eyes they looked as if they where in a dream. No words yet uttered his story still streamed. This boy had no family he was all his own, he had never found that one place to call his true home. As I welled up inside this small boy began to cry. His tears warm to my finger I could see inside like a picture. The small boy he had only one friend, but fate had not abide to the small boys cries as he watched his friend die, even though he tried he could not revive his friend he felt he let him die. Broken as he fell before the large metal door that protected our cell. All these years, these years that he lied and said he was alright fell before me like stars in the night sky. This young lad had, had it so rough I could not imagine another to survive through this kind of stuff. Collapsed on the floor just like in the days of the bullies he abhorred curled holding his head. Never ending it seemed his downfalls they gleamed. But I soon hit the floor for the last of his horrors had hit a spot so sweet. He had watched them die from the shelter they had shown. His parents they cried as they knew he would survive to be haunted alone. I could not stop I cried and I cried for I had finally seen. That this was no boy image or thought. but a vision of myself replayed throughout my dreams.

A quiet kid,
lonely in the rain,
fingers the nickels and pennies
in his pockets, waiting for the bus
to splash around the corner,
so he can get to work.

He lives with a demon of a roommate,
and shares snores with the roaches,
Bathing in the shower of their incontinence.

After college, he lost it and wrecked his mind
in a haze of liquor so foggy it
swallowed the moon for awhile.

He stumbles through pitch black nights
with an ugly soul and redemption on his mind;
The worst kind of late night wanderer.

Coffee and sugar keep him alive--
just like war and famine are the black angel's wives--
bringing him back into this liquid reality.

In the mornings he breathes in this world,
totally sober.

It tastes like sourness
and the milk of ***** entrapped in blue jeans
in 100 degree weather
all day.

It was the worst kind of sobriety.
All the horrors of birth.

He lives many lives:

One for his mother,
where he plants fruitless kisses
on her cheeks.
Little wreaths of future disappointment.

She hugs him so warmly.
It makes him want to suckle his .45.

One for work,
all smiles
and plumb submission.
9-5.
5-2.
12-9.
6-3.
4-12.
And if he's lucky
12-4 on saturdays.

All this in 5 dollar clothes
and a rumplestiltskin attitude;
trying to weave his own ugliness
into truth.

One for his girl,
the one who'd hurl her tongue at Appollo,
puke up her month's sugar intake,
and curl her fingers so tight that she cut the cappillaries,
making a red and white fist like a christmas cinnabon:

If he ever told her who he really was.

His love for her is secret.

One life for himself,
to keep the mirror happy.

This kid.
He's all or nothing.