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I know you want me to tell you
boyhood is some hard,
unmovable thing. 
Full of grit
Blood
And silences.

But

There is softness here, too. 

Plants grow around their wrists, and they softly, softly, touch the leaves.

They try make up for the first time, transferred by the kiss of someone brave or applied by their own shaking hands.

They press their face into white pillows, smiling at memory of another boy’s hands.

There is no fire raging here, only a warm glow, lighting him up, something like love, something like burning -

He reads poetry, and writes the lines he likes in pen, close to his heart. 

There are summer days, and teen movies that make him cry, and the scent of her strawberry conditioner. There is making the hard choices, for the right reasons, and still smiling.

There is softness
even here
within a boy.