there's his boy I once met at the corner bookstore across from the liquor store that all the kids bought beer behind
this bookstore had red shades on its door window
maybe to represent the blood of broken hearts that had found therapy inside of its walls
I found this boy writing poetry on a bar-like stool from a leaky black pen that looked like someone had used it and then left it to die
I didn't know what to say to him
hazel eyes that were a little too intense
so I reached into my purse, and I pulled out a pencil
"Here."
"Yours looks kind of broken."
"It's hard to hold broken things in your hands."
he just smiled and laughed
"I would know."
and that was the end of that.
but it wasn't
was it?
I went back to that bookstore later
on a cloudy Thursday afternoon
"Do you have any information on that boy who was here?"
"I was just wondering."
"Tell me if you can."
the clerk laughed
"he's banged every ******* this street."
"his father used to hit him."
"he leaves his poetry books here- in the back."
information upon information
I learned a lot from those books
so let me tell you about this boy
his eyes turned green in direct sunlight
he loved someone who didn't love him back
and his skin was stitched together by the words he wrote on paper
he had spent months under sheets that smelt of various perfumes
he had spent weeks inside of girls who's lipstick smudged on their too-long-nails
nails sharp enough to slit a throat
he spent years looking out windows,
while on his bed,
or maybe a girl who asked him home,
and wondering if the moon had broken the sun's heart when it turned to darkness
no one ever told this boy that you can't destroy love by faking it
the only thing he was really destroying was himself
but writing this is destroying me
and my pen is leaking all over the bookstore's new coffee tables
a church donated them
so I think I'm done