His Internal Valor | Teen Ink

His Internal Valor

April 23, 2014
By Bryn.B GOLD, Spring, Texas
Bryn.B GOLD, Spring, Texas
18 articles 0 photos 18 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Maybe who I was cannot be captured, only reminisced; all I know is I'm my favorite me I've ever been."




-Michael W. J. Yearout


This boy I know, wears a red banner over his heart. It is hidden below the many layers he wraps himself in, exposing it to no one. I’ve unwrapped him though, many times, felt the bare skin of his vulnerability, seen the reality of it all. He brushes it off like it is nothing, preferring not to talk about it, covering up again, quickly, pretending the red banner isn’t there-
But it is.

I wish I could take the red banner away from him, take its place, mend the scars with hope, but that won’t happen, he is the only one who can do that. All I can do is keep his company, play along with his masquerade of denial. I sometimes wonder what he was like when he was younger, carefree and unable to comprehend the significance of the red banner. “Never grow up,” I want to tell the younger him, “never lose your spunk.” But he can’t hear me, because that facet has long been buffed out of him.

I knew, somewhere in me I just knew, the second I first made eye-contact with those verdigris eyes of his, that he was here for a reason, that is, in my life. I knew in that instant, that he had something under that grayscale expression of his- something I had to find. I don’t think the red banner is all I had to find though, it came too easily for that to be true. In all honesty, I believe I’ve just hardly scratched the surface.
He’s a diamond, hard to find, hard to crack, but energetically scintillating from each quirk, flaw, and facet-

Red banner and all.


The author's comments:
This is a piece about one of my friends with HIV (the title is an acronym), that's what the red banner stands for.

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