the tale of the boysaint who had fallen into the gutter but looked up at the stars

I’d like to tell you a story about a faraway boy
With shadowed stainedglass eyes
Who loved everything a little too much
And tried to cure his heavy heart
With things he knew he ought not to do
Like cloud his mind with bluegrey smoke
And fill his veins with fields of red flowers

I’d like to help you hear the hollow sound
His battered, worn-down shoes
On the wet footpaths of the city’s alleyway streets
Added to London’s pulsating, thunderous beat
As he’d feel his way along the brick and grime
To places not above nor under ground
Where he’d do things he’d rather never have done
As a means to do the things he ought not

I’d like to help you better see his tracingpaper skin
That transparently let secrets be shown
His blueveins were like train tracks under harsh florescent tube-lights
And lower, his bones that had met too many bones rattled & shook
Though the borrowed ride was really quite calm

I’d like to help you understand that there was more for that boy to mind
Than the gap between the train and the platform
Like how his stomach would disappear
Or how sometimes he could hardly stand for the sakes
And how cold it got late at night
When stolen leather, threadbare cotton, & ripped jeans were not enough
Because all else there was, was a flee-bitten, bare mattress
In desolate blackness with broken glass & holes in the roof

I’d like to help you feel what he felt
While threading the needle that stitched his fate
Listening to the sound of his mate putting the kettle on for cups of Earl Grey
That they knew would go cold—untouched
When smokehaze began to feign pure steam & the seed had been sewn

Everything was beautiful though could not be seen
Because his stainedglass eyes had rolled back & hid
Guarded behind long & heavily-pieced black lashes
Just like a doll’s when laid on its back