Slender willowy body. Feet like long platforms, reaching towards me like docks stretch to meet the ocean. Two skinny legs, running upwards and coming together to form a small trim waist. Broad shoulders reach out from side to side, each one muscular and defined. His chest is an open canvas stretched across a thin frame. A left-handed boy of 17 years, with a wide stride and linearly organized mind. Six-foot-one and looking up to him is like looking into the sun. Sweet face above, each feature porcelain and sculpted with its own unique detail. Wide jaw, angling and defined. Manly, and centered by a chin. His chin and upper lip are shadowed by stubble, cool shade on his face. His lips spread to reveal a fresh oasis of neatly arranged white teeth. His cheeks are pushed upwards like framing curtains and secured by dimples, his brown eyes big and playful above. Chunks of chocolate brown hair are pushed from one side of his face to the other, flowing fluidly forward into his eyes. His long fingers sliding through the brown mass, teasing it back to reveal his wide squared forehead, angled like his jaw, with creases and a healed gash acquired in his earlier years. He laughs and rolls his eyes, shifting his hips and opening his arms. He pulls a red rose from somewhere inside his black waxy leather jacket. His slender fingers and chewed down nails guide the flower out from its hiding place allowing its color to bleed into the day. Smiles and interlaced fingers; laughter rolls back and forth from him to me like a red rubber ball.

Loud, annoying and calling out. Cheeks flush red from things he says. Greasy, limp strands of mud for hair. It’s too long, I say to him when my mother mistakes him for a woman. He may be 17 but he has no concept of "inside voice" or "don’t talk to strangers." Pink mounds erupt from his face, black pecks scattered like lost polka-a-dots intrude his blotchy complexion. His child-like face hair pokes and prods as sharp to the touch as it is to the eye. What a loser, his gangling lanky limbs, each so thin his joints appear to be round ball bearings. So tall his pants stretch but cannot reach any lower than his shins. A jungle of ankle, hair flesh and all, are thrown nakedly and unprepared into plain sight. Embarrassing. He gives the finger to our peers, pissing off tough-looking people on the street. You’re going to get beat up, I warn. All the scolding and warning, he tucks away for his mind to chew on. He chews on me as well, like livestock pounding, pounding his teeth on a ball of grass. He’s always turning and flipping everything over and over, inside out, insulting, blaming. I can’t wait till I’m all alone, he thinks. Wants to get away from my nitpicking. That’s all he can remember, besides the last fight. A pessimist. Doesn’t call, doesn’t care. That’s all he remembers. His full lips become thin and stretched in a repulsive, mean snarl.