You are 
the most alluring kind of
disorienting:
        the way the glassy surface of the lake 
        mirror-images the sun
            until the slightest ripple 
            turns it to shattered light 
and reveals the layered depths beneath.
You are 
all the things we (girls) learn to love but fear:
the tall, athletic stride
the effortless electrifying smile
the ability to make anyone feel like 
they’re the only one in the room
        when your eyes meet theirs.
But somehow 
these would-be weapons have always stayed safely strapped to your belt
All that you’ve ever wielded
was kindness 
an earnest and sometimes self-effacing honesty 
and these parts of you
can disarm more than all the others.
 
I realize only now
maybe you didn’t know
what you could’ve done
with just a smile.
Maybe you didn’t get the societal bullshit narratives written on the stone walls around you
Maybe you needed me to tell you
what I thought you always knew
not so you would be
that “thing” the predictable, typecast guy is
but so you would know 
how breathtaking it is
that you’re not.