the way sunlight reflected off other people and bodies around him and bounced toward him, making his olive skin shimmer like fading dots of a sunset on a starlit horizon

there was

something

different about him

of the glint in his eyes of

the lingering quirk of

a devil's advocate

of the brilliant mind

his eyes shone into of

an enigmatic jumble

of alluring chaos

of the honey and forest

flecked eyes of summer

under a sun long gone

of the intent in their

depths of someone you

knew you couldn't

trust but couldn't help

being drawn

just a little closer

of lips of roses and

thorns that whispered

the lies he wanted to hear

against the velvet cheeks

of countless girls who

fell too close

but people didn't know that whatever way the sun glowed on his skin as if he were once part of a star, the streaks of sunlight threading through the chocolate strands of his hair couldn't reach into the empty space of his hollow chest trapped by the bars of his ribs separated by darkness

they

didn't

know

of the splintered beer

bottles that still had

splatters of the blood from

his hands and sill

remembered the feel

of his lips on their rim

of the whiskey that mixed

with his tears as he tried

to feel the burn of the

alcohol at his throat in

his heart the way the

night sky and a torn

blue kite used to do so

before

of the packets of weed

and the smoke his lungs

drank like air that drowned

his chest with honeylike

poison as he searched for

a fire in his soul while he

inhaled smoke and ashes

of the days crossed off

calendars as he listened

to the screams and wars

downstairs of 2 who used

to share one heart and now

only had hatred for each

other in common

of the tear-filled promises

from his older sister

telling him that tomorrow

was another day and it'd

get better,

someday

now

his sister

was

g o n e

and he was just a broken boy society labeled a man all too quickly