At the edge of a flower field, a girl hangs on the white picket fence that
separates her from the other side
She rests her chin in her hand, and watches
As shadows are summoned and twisted to shape
Anxiously searching for the silhouette
Of the boy who walks fearlessly among them

She doesn't know him per se
But she can't help feeling the fear he seems to not

He is the boy who breeds the shadows
And he must have some secret to controlling the dark that she does not know
Is it the song? she wonders
That he plays out night after night, note for note?

Because she has always know the dark to have teeth
And surely anyone who spends so much time with shadows
is bound to be bit

It's wishful thinking
to assume any stance of control
Yet that is what the boy who breeds shadows has done

She strains her eyes into the twilight of the other side
And her shoulders sag in relief as his outline comes into sight

How does he do this, night after night? she marvels

The sunlight gets brighter behind her, so bright it blinds her from inside and turns her side of the fence into a stage, in which the curtain is up and the show must go on.

I know, I know, I have a job to do. I'm coming, she sighs.

Bye, she whispers over the fence to the boy who can't hear her and the shadows that  swallow up the space between them.

She picks up her smile and turns to put on her performance, but her mind is still with the boy who breeds shadows.

*How does he do it?