Some Beautiful Men

early on pay the price.

Even if curls are shorn & envied lashes snipped

spiky with each blink, the effeminate tag stays.

Oh, how those derision-coated bones shyness grows long on

fight not to be supple but better, best,

or become at least even gangly jock.

Then shock's a strap at other's expense when learning to join in,

verbally bludgeon, use a fist even on whomever is queer enough,

or just stand & watch pals beat off in the blood with rapist laughter

over hatred spit forth.

Will you remember it later, gym-fit, taut, you who were victim,

& you the other who played lackey-witness?

Not like that - neither will ever again be, even if it takes alcohol,

meth crystals & sex never safe from vulnerability truly

in the circuit circle jerks

or slings of S & M.

Will that be enough stigmata for the scarred muscles,

the toughened skin even wrinkles are tight on

but at last so masculine as to pass?

Wait a minute, "faggot" you thought someone just said.

Must have been for that moisturized queen,

whether straight-acting or not, still too pretty in his walk.

Handsome is what you should have heard, rugged & rough,

not that too old lame Nelly speech. That is for anyone else

since you have a beard now, tattoos, could even grow a beer gut

& not ever again be the boy beauty damaged,

damned to that torment, nature made as a smile

that could light up a room.