Ghostboy

Ghostboy

Shoulders rolling,
Hands flat like fins
Slicing air, in defiance
Of everything
But the beat--

We couldn’t stop wanting
More of you
And you opened yourself
Because someone asked,
And you were earnest in reply
And pure
And pale like a geisha
skin like the surface of the moon
You walked

And we watched,
It *was* the watching,
And the clucking of tongues,
And the mean words
That drove you away
I’m convinced we killed you,
Michael.

Fifty years a dream, or a life,
You were like a ghost that was a boy
When you were here,
And it seems unreal
Because of everyone
You were the one
That seemed like you’d never go,
That it would never happen to,
That you’d never stop,
A pretty young thing
Alive in soul.