Oh you,
And your certainty that you are harmless.
Make no mistake,
I do adore you.
I admire your selfishness, darling-
No, I really mean it.
It is the child in you.
The "It brings me pleasure, why should I not have it?"
You have so recently discovered anew that you believe you deserve to be happy,
I see its evidence strewn across your life
Like the aftermath of an explosion.
It has no malice, this craving to do
Whatever you want.
Sometimes you make excuses for it,
But I need them not.
You are
How you are.
It's not for me to say you shouldn't chase whatever you fancy,
And indeed, as I said, I admire it.

It has an innocence to it, a thoughtlessness that brings to mind
A little girl in a field of wildflowers,
Picking one after the other,
Because she must have the next one she sees,
Only to drop it, forgotten, when a new one catches her eye.
There is such a freedom to it-
Each new bloom is her favorite ever.

You may have a deep soul,
But you are not old, and I love that in you.
Something in your heart hasn't been worn yet, by time.
Although you have suffered, you have not been...
Eroded. Aged. Wrinkled. Wrung out.
Your colors,
Though gory at times,
Have not been sun or dust faded.
You are new and raw,
And I see it always in your face, in your eyes, in your carelessness.

Me, I play at youth:
I look the part.
But beneath I am weary and the luster of my soul has dulled a bit.
If your broken soul is shards,
Mine is beach glass,
Tossed so many times by the waves that its pieces are smooth and no longer draw blood
But shall never again fit into the jagged edges of each other.

Sometimes I wonder
At how you can treasure every heart you touch with such sensitivity
And somehow still see them all as merely things.
Sometimes-
And don't think it doesn't bring me shame-

I see in my mind a child of six or seven,
With all her favorite, loved dolls set at the miniature tea table,
Feeding them imaginary food and loving them
To death.
Her love is real, you see.
But so is her sudden amnesia
When all of a sudden Mommy calls from downstairs with a new surprise from the shop
And she is gone in a whirlwind of fairy wings and laughter and bare feet
And the dolls lay splayed on the carpet
Like death.

Don't misunderstand me, it brings to my heart the same fondness
But also the same ache, that not everyone can afford to be so.

I wish I had a child in me, like yours.
So free, so untroubled, so buoyant.
I wish I could say, "It brings me pleasure, why should I not have it?"
And not know the answer.
But you see,

When I was barely five, I was playing in the garden with my friend,
And we found this lovely Monarch butterfly,
All shimmering colors and feathery lightness,
And I reached a hand out ever so softly
But stopped just shy of the exquisite wings,
Held back by an instinct I have always had
About fragile things.
She had no such instinct, though,
And as I withdrew my fingers,
She reached to grab the little creature
So that she could touch the pretty colors
That shimmered in the light
And crushed it dead.
Her shock was a mystery to me,
But my grief wasn't.
I have never been afforded the luxury of carelessness-
I see too far, I have always seen

Too far.

And so I never even strewn my toys across the floor
When I left them.
No, I said goodbye to each, promised I'd be back later, and sat them on their shelves.
It is my way. I am so very careful.

But oh you,
You and the child in your heart
Who has a new favorite color,
Every day-
The best favorite
You have ever had.
And oh me,
Who, as a child,
Refused to pick them at all
So as not to grieve
The others.