Bodybuilder

[lainey]

Version 4.0
Bodybuilder The title is telling, you want bodybuilding to be seen as an art. Helps readers see the conceit.

My cousin knew a man who worked with stone comma?
who slaved for years to master his profession.
Seeking to show his sculpted stone expressions In this line specifically, 'show' just seems like a verb a guy would use. I would've said 'flaunt.'
supplied him skills the world had never known. This line and the one above seem drawn out, as if you're trying to satisfy some kind of metre.
He'd sneak away at night to work alone;
as passion slowly turned into obsession,
his search for perfect art into depression, his search for art turned into depression, would make more sense, though I still don't like this line, depression and obsession kind of neutralise each other.
the marble was to him as flesh and bone.
Preferring solitude the sculptor fled
and watched his work, his life, his love erode
until disheartened wife and son escaped.
With crumbled spirit yearning to be dead,
the beating of his graven heart then slowed
and stopped - nothing left but empty shape.
These last three lines carry the conceit well, i.e., "graven, crumbled, shape."