Invisible Boys

The rocks split my lower back with broad blades
as I lean away from the speedboat's wave
I do not feel it
Only the churning
The gladiators fighting lions inside my stomach, the tumultuous battle
The sharp stones are the penance for my unworthiness
I roll onto my side and place my palm on the pale chest
just like I always did
My fingers come up caked in mud
soiled
a failed belief smeared on the ring finger
giving it the weight it once relished

I can do nothing but read
O Jerusalem, Watership Down, the line where the
water meets sand like horizontal dripping paint

Invisible boys are like hope, like love, like God
gone away from here