addendum; wyatt

Thirteen years and a coming of age,
What’s sadness and hopelessness without disgrace?
Reflection etched into the blade of a knife,
Tell him now, “Wisdom’s the start of good life.”
But, alas, what was found,
Was the violence in quiet; the loss of sound.
A blank canvas; a young heart,
He searched for a gallery of finer art.
Purity stained with the formation of sin,
What’s coming of age without loss of innocence?

(I pressed the knife to my heart and his hand,
Told him this was no spectacle for the honorary or grand.
He said, “Wyatt, my son, I know this to be true,
You’ll soon paint in two different shades of blue.”
Vision two-toned and a heart that still beat,
I decided discussion ends in simple defeat.)

His mother began counting the days that remained,
Estimated time left a simple end game.
She handed him a smile and half a false hope
Disguised love as drugged methods with which he could cope.
“There’s a world out there—just yet to be seen,
Turn the page once more, for you’re simply fourteen.”
Do not sharpen this heart against your own skin,
Flesh that’s torn once is not viable again.”
What’s a mother to do when her son has found grace,
In the sharp eye hidden behind soft jaw and blurred face?

(My mother spoke gently; cradled hope in her palm--
There’s redemption in song, but I cannot sing along.
The oasis that lies over crest of the hill,
A mirage, hallucination, false hope of lost will.
One day I will drink from the fount that runs deep,
But this soulbodyspirit—it is not mine to keep.)

Those walls around him enclosed, enraptured, contained
That boy of sixteen—nothing left to his name.
White-washed and dull in comparison, to him it must seem
That a life long lived could end at sixteen.
His father found a gun made of silence and rage,
One finger on the trigger; one day to take aim.
“Son, you have chosen the wrong weapon for this fight;
A knife’s no good when the enemy’s in hindsight.”
But a bullet that is loaded does no harm ‘till it’s shot,
Seconds in passing, again, his lesson was taught.

(I’d seen the target he painted that night;
Watched a red stripe be formed across his foresight.
I knew I was dead before the sun rose,
A matter for formalities—for stories and prose.
But this tale does not end with a dead boy of sixteen,
A survivor, I am not, but a tale-teller, indeed.)

A celebration of sorts, and my, what a scene—
A mother whose son had graced seventeen.
She handed him a book with the pages yet torn,
By time-ridden fingers and a conscience long worn.
“Five steps to fixing your child’s depression include,
Reminders of guilt, but compassion still too.
Tell them that this could be their fault, and still,
You’ll love what is left, even if only due to goodwill.”
A duty of motherhood; a trouble of time,
Turned pages, ripped corners—a discussion of paradigm.

(A beginning that marked the end of a mind,
I turned to page one and lost simple rhyme.
I looked for it once but soon gave up all hope—
It says on page one delusion is but a steep slope.
Delusion defined by these boundaries and lines,
What’s another barrier broken by a boy confined?)

The day of eighteen—his mother, she cried,
Her son had found something in the pages defined.
She was sure of the savior, the messiah, my god,
For what other than divinity could have sewn the seeds in the sod?
His father was not the same— sure of his son’s demise,
After all, no woman of flesh could turn down compromise.
But still he found persona, patted a boy on the back;
Thought of the ways to renege an adulthood that lacked.
He had promised his own, a man of worn age,
That he would not pass on disgrace, disillusion, or torn page.

(The day of eighteen I found my mother’s gaze,
I apologized twice, and then found the voice to say:
“I am not fixed; not bandaged and healed--
The world that you see is not mine to feel.
I’m still void; still tired and covered in scars—”
“Wyatt, you’re depressed”—I am—you are)

What’s a graveyard to the survivor of such a long war?
A reminder; a calling— there’s always one more.

A slip made of paper and a hand made of glass,
Once shattered; twice broken—I knew I would not last.

To mark my own skin on the second day in,
The blood of a martyr, a lost cause, and unpaid sin.

The cannon that sounded rang a hymn at eight and nine,
I blamed my own bones, my flesh, and wasted time.
The boy from seven offered me whiskey in the mean time.

The same hand that I had been so quick to take
Broke bottle and bone in insanity’s sake.
I had shattered his skull with the blunt of an axe—
Had wished it my own;
Had wished it would last.

I saw his death twice but the first lingered long,
The boy’s scream was yet but an off-key song.
He’d whistle the tune-- I wish I could whistle along.
He sang for the splinter of wood, heart and bone,
I saw his flesh rot; saw his sins never atone.
When he fell I had whistled; the cannons would turn to stone.

An axe in my hand and a hole in my heart,
The girl from eight had spoken truth from the start.
Two words of confession, this girl— “I’m scared”.
My god aren’t we all— why would hers be mine to spare?

I was sure that to play this game for success,
One must discard morality and yet still confess
Of the struggles and strife;
The call of a knife.

I had spoken of martyrs and victors; pariahs and kings;
But damned by the story, I'd fall at eighteen.

graphics: rook