For G.T.

 

Your ex told me
you died in the weight room
doing bench presses,

trying to put on a few more ounces of bulk.
It was that and the junk you were taking
to build muscle, she thought,

that burst your heart –
the first of us to go
before we could practice

by burying our parents.
She never understood why
you needed to be so big,

why you had to prove
over and over
you were smarter than everyone,

could learn five languages,
master all mathematics,
throw a football seventy yards.

She never met
the frightened little boy
hiding under the kitchen table

you were trying to protect.