Caleb Broeker (18)
Sunflower Boy
Sunflower Boy
Sunflower Boy |
I've always been tall
Back in the third grade I remember kids telling me they expected me to be mean
But I wasn't
So they called me a gentle giant
And that's what I've always been
Kind of like a sunflower
Tall
With petals open wide
Reaching towards the sky
Despite my size
Harmless
Innocent
Pure
Until I noticed I wasn't just tall
I was wide too
Wide in ways the other boys weren't
And instead of looking up to the sun
Petals fanning wide
I began to droop
Began to hang my head whenever I walked in the hallways
So no one could see my face
Would keep my leaves to my sides
So maybe I'd seem a little less wide
There were weeds creeping up on me, too
Wrapping their little tendrils around my vitamin-D-deficient, lacking in self-esteem stem
And I didn't know they were there until it was too late
Until they wrapped around my petaled face
I didn't use raid
I used razors
To try and cut them away
I couldn't
I told myself
I'd deal with them soon
I wouldn't
I went without water
I went without sunlight
I took handfuls of pills instead
Twenty, thirty
Whatever it took to numb my head
To take away the pain of knowing
That these weeds
Were getting the best of me
I began to fade away
To become a little blurry around the edges
Watched in the mirror as my petals went from yellow to pastel
To grey
I felt the way my roots began to decay
My head hanging lower
And lower
Felt my blood drying up in my veins
I began to think a certain way
Began to think that I was born to wither away
To become some dried-up, brown, decaying corpse of a plant
To be nothing more than remains
Of a boy who was once a sunflower
Painting Restoration
Painting Restoration |
I started watching those painting restoration videos
You know the ones
Where they take the painting out of the old frame that was no longer worthy
Of keeping the canvas upright
Stretched across the frame too tight
Gently remove the nails that bind it
Release it from its broken frame
Lay it gently flat
Sweep away the dust
Melt away the surface grime with some kind of solvent
And a gentle touch
Plaster over the places where time was not kind
Use Belgian linen to bind back
To turn time back
Bent over
Broken back
Mixing the paint
To make the perfect shade
Of sapphire and jade
To fix and correct the things that make them anything less
Than a masterpiece
I started speaking to the silent boy
You know the ones
The boys with a chip on their shoulder
He was cold but his heart was colder
He was distant
Long distance
Perspective painting of frayed telephone lines
The kind of guy
Stretched too tight
On a frame that could no longer hold him
I released the tension slowly
Nail by nail
Inch by inch
Brushed away the broken pieces
Removed the dirt and grime from his heart with verbal solvent and a gentle touch
Plastered over the places where love was not kind
Bind back his scars with Belgian linen
Bind his back scars with Belgian linen
Helped him find beauty again between Belgian linens
Spent hours of the night red-eyed
Pondering and mixing and trying to find
His perfect shade of left behind
To show him he has nothing to hide
Beautiful broken guy
Now pulls me back to earth
Keeps me on the ground
With his earthy browns
Eyes like Cyprus umber
Heart like diamonds under
Layers of oxidized linseed
Don't you know you're beautiful to me?
Don't you know you're all I see?
Beautiful broken boy,
You're a masterpiece.
Caleb Broeker is a poet from St. Louis, Missouri. He is a competitive slam poet and went to the final stage of the regional competition in the 2018 season. Caleb writes about his perspective on life and love as a gay man who has faced hardship, and he hopes to help other teenagers realize that they have a safe place in poetry.