Haunted Eyes

I wrote this two years ago after something my boyfriend told me.

The man who prefers to stay anonymous
with his placid expression and haunted eyes
marked hands held stiffly at his side
clenching
release
exhale
clenching again


I know what they held so menacingly

I’m staring now
and you see
yet you don’t
you are here
just as your not
Horrors throttles you
unheard tails of another boys past
Bathing in antiseptic

Pretending

he's forgetting

You knows the grit is embedded somewhere else
His flesh reeks of desperate sterility
like a dark mass it wades
Stagnant
A shadow reflecting behind glass
I cannot breach that place
between the cracks, a hollow in a space

I can scratch at your dignity
An increasingly skeptical  stare
translucent marks embellishing your flesh
divert your glare
A swollen expanse of time
I see you
Your haunted eyes
The rest feigns delusion