You have cast your shadow today,
One you cast many years ago when I was a boy,
A boy full of ideals.
Of warmth.
Of hope.
Your shadow then was for me - life.
A boy of fifteen with the heart of an old soul.
You weren't much older but by a few years.
Connected for a moment in time.
Then you were gone.
Which I understood (eventually).
But....
I thought I loved you and your shadow.
That idealism playing and pulling at those young heart strings.
How can someone love with a heart so young?
(With a soul that is old and strange.)
Now, decades later, your shadow - though distant - is here again.
Redefined.
I welcome it.
I need it now more than then.
This isn't a boy in love.
This is a man.
My body catching up to the age of my soul.
Thank you for letting me see that dreams do come true as I live vicariously through you.