vulnerable boys. They were the subject of prayers twenty years ago (when I still prayed) and they show up in National Geographic photo's today. They are irrestible to me—not just the boys themselves, but more so their vulnerability. We all succumb eventually to competence as adults and lose the precious weakness of youth. If we accept adulthood's mantle as offered, we gain the wherewithal to survive, and in exchange, we become indistinguishable from the rest. Thus decorum is maintained.
Threats to decorum give rise to war, state sanctioned murder, and worse. Vulnerable boys are convinced by decorum-keepers to give their lives in it's defense; vulnerable boys will do anything for the men they love. And cheerfully too, not with tedious tests of logic or morality, but with love only.
So whenever I see a vulnerable boy, whether his crisis is fighting someone else's battle, or involvement in a fatal car crash, or suffering under the burden of unrequited love, my heart goes out. They are the former me, beautiful for the undefended offering of their fresh tender hearts, while desperately enduring the wounds their hearts sustain. I recognized it 20 years ago—was I still a vulnerable boy?—when I saved eerily similar newspaper photos from the same day, of two hurting boys. I recognize it today in a young French chef's injured gaze at his beloved.
there is no greater pain for me than to remain isolated while in the vicinity of a vulnerable boy (of legal age of course). I feign disinterest, for he would quickly own me, heart and soul, if I revealed the true need I feel. Luckily, as I get older, I see them less and less, and most days now, the only vulnerable boy I come near is me.
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