once when he was five
he made up a song
while riding on his favorite swing
and when he fell off and scraped
his shin, his brother told him
not to cry because
girls liked scars.

and that night as his father
tucked him into bed he hummed
the song he made up
while riding on his favorite swing
and fell asleep in two minutes

once when he was fourteen, he stared
out the window of a parked car for hours
gazing at the stars
and wondered if they thought he was beautiful.
that was the year he first kissed a boy

once on a blank piece of paper
he tried to write a song
but forgot how it went
and that was the year that his brother
went to college and he was
put into foster care because his mother left
and his father was too drunk
to tuck him in at night

and that was the year the boy he kissed
introduced him to the bottom of a bottle
and the taste of cigarettes
and thats how most nights went

once he began to make art
on a blank wrist and he thought
the only way to end the pain
was to break the veins that
bound him to this broken world
and when his brother came back
for christmas and saw his scars,
he didn't say anything
at all

that was the year the boy he first kissed
beat him in english class
and called him a ******
and spit in his face

once when he was seventeen
he stole the keys to a stranger's car
humming a song he had
forgotten the tune to
and drove out into the middle of
nowhere and as he gazed
into the sky he finally understood
that the stars didn't think he was beautiful
because they were all empty inside

and so was he