Boihood
All I ever wanted to be was a song—
something soft and light held in the mouth
sung sweet beneath the coming dawn.
I return to that first desire—its gingham blouse
rubbed against the heavy pull of flesh hovered
in a dark that I can only recall as that dark.
I ask what grace awaits that tender tendril’s suffered
stretch of green wide enough to tear a stark
light out from under a troubled sky? I return
to the center of that smallness and sing its wounds—
jagged rasp crooned until edged out and earned.
I was the only boi I knew dreaming in soft bruise.
And it made me as beautiful as the blood’s slow sprawl
at my knee, right before punching a bullying boy to crawl.