Eleven-years-old should be bold and boyful
Joyful, jelly beans and snow on Christmas
Robert Frost’s birches, swinging on branches
Latching to hopes that have yet to become.

Seventeen should be dreaming, dress-up as grown-up
Growing and grinning and racing the time—
Sprint to the finish, and then look behind
Hours to minutes and seconds to breaths.

But his face had roundness that gave way to edges,
Glittering, forged from the weight of the press
How much can you take away from the boy?
You take and you take until there’s nothing left.

He howled at night, at the stars and the sky
He’d have pulled down the moon, if only he could
And he should, he ought to have clawed down the heavens
For the hole gaping wide, for a god who deserts.

And still, though he trembled, sweat slicking his skin
When he saw you watching, he gave you a grin.
It was tender, titanium, tenacious and thin
And tremulous, breaking apart in the wind.

His fingers pressed into the dirt and the dice
Then he gazed at you, O Fate, like a vise
His heart made of gold but his eyes made of ice
And he told you, O Fate:
“𝑵𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏.”