Beneath Hard Skins

Here’s a story about the boy

They never told you.

A boy shipwrecked within
Still, strength called him strong on the outside
For the boy slowly drifted into manhood
Gradually developing a broad chest,
Broad enough to occupy the burdens of his heart
As the lips of the waters made mockery of his quandary

I speak of that boy left with the guilt of his innocence
As he staggered through the slippery aisle of rising emotions

Against what we think we know
The boy, like the one you saw the other day
Only had a tint of courage printed on his face
While he moved through his phase
With fading colours within

Here’s a story
About the boy
They never told you.
The one you see sometimes
With so much darkness in his eyes
Darkness, like what you think is freedom.
For the light goes out when bones turn stone
And nature speaks death
When life gets compressed,
To the limitations of freedom.
Freedom,
A freedom not to be free
Free to cry,
For every tear from his eyes
Was another escape long withheld
And every word from his heart,
Another truth brushed aside
So,this remains
A story untold
The very one they never told you
Even when the boy is now a grown man
Striving to become the father he needed as a son.
Once upon a memory that lives on…

~ Eden Benibo