I saw them all the time,

the sixteen and seventeen year old boys
consumed with anger-tinged sorrow,
ready to hurl fiery lightning bolts
at the world if only they had had the power.
Their faces wore the marks
of adolescence's enemies.
They didn't have the bodies of the men
they secretly envied.
They never had the heroism it took
to talk to any of Them, the unattainable ones.
They ground on, day after day,
soaking and marinating in their misery,
not so much disliked by other kids,
but something worse: ignored.
And I wondered, when looking at their
grim, sad, defiant expressions, when the
last time was that anyone had touched
them, when the last time was (if ever)
their parents had given them that reassurance
that no boy will ever admit he needs, but
all of them do.
No friend, no girl, no one
had embraced them since they were children,
or even so much as put an arm around them.
And as I saw them crawling through
the broken glass of their lives,
I realized that people can die
of more things
than meet the eye.