an io of a boy

I've never seen a man such as this
dirty hair, uneven and tangled
Had i known less
i would have thought him a bum

But that expensively ragged jacket
gave him off, This was no runaway.
A private school attendee
cultured in the bel-air mentality

But this one's been abroad,
oh yea, skinny,
this one's been north
he thought he would make it

But he's not all that bad
his grey shoes were once white
and the weight he perceives
is all his own

Then, like judas before his mirror,
he jumps and dodges, vertically slithering
through an obstacle course
that i cannot begin to imagine

his eyes beg to be understood.
the voices he could not silence,
the reason he succumbed to
and the fate he fought

and in his eyes
a plea to an invisible demon.
his neck tightened
as he holds it in

Yes this one does not come often.
Having been stretched for so long
the thinness of his mask
has begun to betray him

a struggling,
barely self sustaining
young atlas, desperately
pushes it all away

-fernando