He used to have such life behind his eyes.

He would laugh, and play, and joke around.
He played cello, and piano,
and he sang with everything inside of him.

He knew how to love and he loved deeply.
And everyone loved him, too.

Granted,
That was back when they called him "she."

Shoved him into dresses with matching bows,
and forced him to take ballet and drop out of soccer.
They put him in a pink room with frilly purple sheets,

and everything around him made him want to die.

As he grew worse and worse
the life that he held in his eyes faded to a dull, empty blue.
And the world around him seemed to turn grey and desolate.

He went through each day with a smile plastered to his face,
plodding through an empty, grey plane with nothing but that smile keeping him from releasing the broken, shattered sounds that seemed to echo in every fiber of his being.

It's hardly any better now,
but if you asked him,
he'd smile a little wider and tell you it was fine.