Pretty Boy
by Logan Anthony
Sitting at home,
Waiting alone
Unmoving, unyielding,
A figure of stone.
Watching the time
Tick off the wall,
Wondering when
He’ll be here.
Electronic drones
Pervasively moan.
Through the statical view,
My existence’s clone
Will matter the shadows
And mind the flowers,
Ensuring all is just right.
As dusk turns to night
With waning light
I take a deep breath
To clear my sight;
And as I exhale,
I release my grip
With a moan of the leather armchair.
Blood is pumping,
Mind is thumping,
Genitals aching for hours of humping —
When, jolting to life
My granite construction,
The doorbell rings
With thunderous eruption,
Sonically detailing our guest’s introduction:
My pretty boy is here.
Up on my feet,
I wake from my sleep,
Thinking, What does he like,
What does he eat?
Making myself
Into who I must be
As I silently reach for the door.
I remove the latch,
Strike a match,
Light a good candle.
Just breathe and relax.
I open the door
And there, in the light,
There stands my pretty boy.
No words come to say,
“How are you?” Or “Hey,”
Like having been muted,
Controlled from away.
So then with a blink,
He steps to the left
And quietly enters the home.
Covered in dark
Save the candle’s spark,
I lose his figure,
Silhouetted stark.
When he turns around,
I see in his eyes
A light that draws me from the door.
I move a bit closer
To get a better look
At those starlight eyes
From a page in a book;
But his shift in stance
And downcast glance
Stopped me in my tracks.
We must have been
Some five feet apart.
I nervously waited,
Knowing not where to start.
Then he dropped his bag
And took off his shirt
And stood like a pretty boy should.
The room filled with silence
Polluting the air;
Two humans, a candle,
The leather armchair;
And nothing on Earth could ever compare
To what was said just then.
I looked at this person,
A trademark pretty boy —
The image of Adonis,
A Hector of Troy —
And in my mind
Came a single phrase:
“What has been done to you?”
He held himself well,
But his brow did tell
Of wisdoms he learned
At the gates of hell.
He knew much of loss,
Well-versed in defeat
And humiliation, when he
Couldn’t get up on his feet.
His eyes were darkened
In a sunken gloom
From squinting for light
In cavernous tombs,
Which explained why his hands
Were calloused and torn
From clinging to walls
Since the day he was born.
They told stories of battles
With demons and horrors,
The likes of which silence
The strongest of warriors.
His neck bore a scar
Signed by a lion’s nail
As it lashed at his throat
And whipped with its tail.
His stomach was stitched
For reasons I dread.
Intestines and lungs
Held together by thread
From times when ribbons
Were made of his sides;
The scars were so plain —
Couldn’t hide if he tried.
His legs were well muscled,
To run from attack
While the weight of the world
Was held on his back.
His shoulders were shrugged,
Yet implacably built,
Like seeing a redwood
Beginning to wilt.
Of his feet and his knees
There’s not much to say,
Never having had a home
Or a place to stay.
But upon his chest,
There was a smear
That hid in the flicker
Of the candlelight near.
A mark of dirt,
Or perhaps war paint.
In defense of the thing
He showed it with restraint.
Upon seeing that,
I knew quite well
Of the life of my pretty boy,
Of the tales he could tell.
Of the battles he’s lost,
Of the hope that is gone,
Of the merciless beatings
When he’d done nothing wrong.
How he scraped to survive
When drowned in the flames —
He was forced to die,
Then live by new names.
But without hope,
Without truth,
Without a happy memory
From his youth,
Without love,
Without trust,
Only knowing himself
As an object of lust,
Without kindness,
Without peace,
With only atrocities
Which never would cease —
With all this comprising
His knowledge of man,
He stood there before me,
Just able to stand.
His heart but a rock
Indelibly written
To continue to beat,
No matter how hidden.
The heart of the pretty boy,
Drowned beneath peat,
Still kept pumping,
Kept him on his feet
To walk from this day
And on to the new,
While knowing his chances
Of joy were few,
He chose to go on:
Unwilling to bow,
Unwilling to martyr —
He didn’t know how.
His heart still pulsed,
Like a snow white mare
Perpetually trapped
In the grey wolf’s lair.
Through it all he endured
‘Till he found his way here,
To the glow of my candle,
Not shedding a tear.
And so I was stuck
In the silent dark gold;
Having not said a word,
Lacking strength to be bold.
Trying to understand,
Trying to see
The composition of the pretty boy
Stood in front of me.
I remembered to breathe,
I remembered to blink.
I opened my mouth,
Then stopped to think:
“Throughout his whole life,
In sound or in ink,
Has he ever been told he is pretty?”
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