Ruffed up, that smoothed-lipped

gaping puppy maw

speckled with dirt and begging to cry out but never doing so

Those were the lips that he desired

Tossed aside, that feather-haired

long lion's mane

silky, shiny, soft, slippery always discarded in the dusk of life

That was the hair he itched to fix

Weighed down, those puppy-soft

gleaming darling eyes

the lashes clumped together with tears never meant to be shed

Those were the eyes he longed to dry

Oh that golden, splendid Johnny

So pure, so in need of protection,

so dire for existing

The thoughts of Dallas Winston, one proposes

Were to take the young, pure lad

into his scarred and scratched heart

to hold him in the embrace of lovers

to maybe find the Man He Wished to Be

With the Boy of Sixteen.