He sits.
The desk cowers beneath him,
her slender legs accepting his brute weight.
He reaches into his day-glo backpack, searching for
optimism,
acceptance,
knowledge of the eons—
no, just a pen.

Though he swaggers like a man and
speaks like a boy, his glinting necklace,
Jesus on a stick,
gives him solid foundations to the half world he lives in.

Half good, half bad.
Half boy, half man.
He goes through the motions all expect.
He laughs with the girls, punches with the boys,
comes home smelling of beer and sweat
and the
burnt toast tang of regret and rebellion.

He is a boy,
a man,
a half being in a half world
that will someday morph into a house, a home,
a brunette wife with a burping baby
and he’ll glance down at
his black nails and his beer gut and
his golden Jesus crying on stick
and the transformation will be complete.

He’ll be
a half man in a
half world and
somehow, for a moment, it will be enough.


But for now the half man half boy sits,
sucking on his day-glo pen,
laughing with the girls and
punching with the boys and
not realizing that someday, this
might just
be
enough.