Ocean Sky Denim Eyes

His eyes are the ocean when it collides with the cliffs.
They are the sky that no birds fly in.
They are the worn denim in the thrift shop.
They are all those kinds of blue,
with cracks shooting out of the center
from all the times the world broke his point of view.

He told me, "Boys cry. Just as much as the girls."
So I watched him, with his ocean sky denim eyes
and his hands shaking like his veins are fault lines.
And I saw the pain from the war and the shame.
The men he saw die by the bullets he made fly,
and the home he saw wrecked by the rum on his breath.

"You're makin it just fine sweetie pie,"
he said as he looked straight into my eyes.
But it was at that moment he realized
that mine were the same kind of blue.
I wondered if he would take back what he said now that he knew.