Peak

The boy peaked too early
turned textured, fibrous as he grew
hills and tensions across flesh
Now inflated, now bursting
among peers who were still smooth
Not only sprouted but longing
for the crevices his body had carved out for itself
the same sweat streaking his fabrics
He asked himself often but silently
Why his desires were hewn
to reflect his own form

The boy peaked too late
caught in knots of his unknowing
tripping while others watched, then noticed
then hounded senselessly
Those same figures he couldn’t but pull towards
couldn’t help but wrongly crave
His form, now something with shape
was still but one and vulnerable
and surrounded by swarming, familiar faces
he could do nothing but beg, wondering
How this cruelty exploded
against something that felt so natural to him

The boy peaked exactly when he ought to have
revealing, they knew, a rotten core
once dormant but always present
Imagined threats to bodies suffusing, damningly in their eyes, his own
revealing to them what they needed to know
and to know to follow him one night
rush him quietly and cunningly
pushing him down before
shattering their glass and wondering aloud, jeeringly
What else he had expected
with desires like his

No, the boy never peaked
never mounted his own faces
despite a belief in beauty atop
He fell instead completely into his own form
aware of why he fell
but not why he had to

It breaks my heart, and yours