Toys are scattered about the floor.
Robots and Dinosaurs attack plastic soldiers.
The Grandsons are enacting a ****** battle.
No one is safe! Not even Grandpa!
     I've been killed, apparently,
     by a flying super-robot that
          knows no mercy!

I worry I won't be
playing with them next year.

Darkness all around the world.
Darkness all inside of me.
Whispers behind my back,
murmurs of pity, I think.

I still have much I can offer
        to these boys.
        Or so I'd like to believe.

I'm not ready to stop hugging them.
Telling them, again and again,
how important they are to me.

Little boys live in a special world.
A place of mud and sticks,
        bugs and stones.
        Imagination the
        only rule they follow.

***** hands and faces,
       bodies screaming
          for a bath.

I understand this world.
It used to be the same one
         I lived in before.

Ah dear Grandsons.
        Will you miss me?
Will you think of me
      in the middle of your
            playing?

Will you feel me?

Grandfather lips
        mouthing
           "I love you."

Your hearts so innocent.
Lives so uncomplicated.

Neither of you understands
          the concept of dying.

As it should be.

Stay this way as
long as you are able to.

The real world is a cold place.
A mixture of grieving and denial.
A faithless emptiness that
        consumes the desire
            to achieve.

Toys are scattered about the floor.
Robots and Dinosaurs attack plastic soldiers.

Dear God, how I wish this was
        the only battle I was fighting.