A boy with two teeth sharper than the rest,

and hands that had never touched evil

(nor a mind that knew it),

managed to take the life out of a girl

just by looking at her.

He liked the way she knew she was dying

but didn’t know how—

the way she stumbled, tripped,

and fell into her grave

before it could be dug.

He chased that feeling,

and everyone around him died.

It was the blood he wanted—

it was on his hands; he could see it.

But no one else could.

He liked the secrecy of his impurity,

the quiet of his depravity.

Because in another life,

he was a boy with soft skin

and wandering eyes.

He tried to grab things he swore he could—

like God, and the sun.

He built houses around dead birds

lying on the road,

and caught rain as if he might

throw it back to the sky.

He felt exposed, always—

a lamb split open for sacrifice

but forgotten.

And so he tried so hard to hide

his nakedness by dressing the world

in colors it didn’t have,

by kissing the bruises that belonged.

And what was wrong with him?

He knew something was—

the way he drew blood from his own body

then tried to heal someone else.

Maybe he was angry.

Maybe his father did love him.

Maybe there was no in-between for him—

he was either broken,

or half-mended

by the same hands that tried to destroy him.

(But he prayed anyway.

And each time he sought blood,

he bathed in rivers of repentance.

With every small, dull act

to heal the world—and himself—

he wrote a letter in the dirt:

if you can forgive me.)