23/30

4/23/13

I've never seen him without
sunglasses, he wears snakebite piercings
and insolent swagger like manganese steel,
his smile twists sarcastic at the corners
of lips designed for raillery; he jokes
like someone who's never seen the
inside of concrete cages; he revels
like his veins are clean.

Seventeen with a backpack full of
vodka, headphones sprout from his
ears, a wall - twin parapets for keeping
it all out, for piece of mind. He's been
in four times now, for everything.
He wears his time like an expensive watch,
though now, when the corners of his mouth
fall, ever so slightly, and the lights
reflected in his aviators travel down and
get caught in his throat, I think
he might be wishing for wormholes,
he might believe time means something
completely different when it's in his hand.