Pretty Boys

1.15.10
3:07 am

he said to me, “i am not a pretty boy.”
thin red lips with tiny slits in them – scars.
when he smiled, i caught a few missing and crooked teeth.
rings were around his sunken black eyes.
his nose was sharp; maybe it was elegant once but now it was crooked and juvenile.
the body – his body was tall and skinny. his ribcage protruded through his skin and his clavicles jutted out, accentuated by scars.
the cracked lipped, broken nosed, damaged boy was accurate; he was not pretty and he never would be.
i think he loathed that.
i said, “i’m james—jay. you?”
“people,” he wiped the leaking blood off his jaw, “they all call me twitch,” he said.
his hand vibrated at his introduction.
“what people?” i asked.
he smiled without his teeth and said, “the guy who gave me this nose’s people.”
i wanted to ask, ‘what did the people who gave you that mouth call you?’ but i decided that was too impolite.
i also thought it was impolite to call him ‘twitch’ but i did.

a week after we lay on the floor of some woods. it’s dark and he rests his head on my stomach.
i ask, “why are you alone, twitch?”
he shifts, “because i am.”
“twitch?”
“mm?”
“am i pretty?”
he’s quiet for a while before he gets up, turns and looks at me. he puts his cigarette to his lips and nods slowly, “i think you’re a pretty boy,” he sighs and flips himself back on my stomach. “why’s a pretty boy hanging around me?”
i want to say, ‘because i like hanging around my own kind,’ but i won’t. i don’t think he’s expecting an answer from me anyway. besides,
he’s still not pretty.