There once was a young boy of thirteen years,
who loved a girl with blue eyes shining bright;
he was her world and she was his light;
one was complete when the other was near.

With strawberry milkshake faces and linked lollipop hands,
they walked the Pacific beach, overcome with smitten smiles,
enscribing their names in the rusty, copper sand
"A promise," they said, as the ocean kissed the land

"I'll be with you regardless of the miles"


and with this, he gifted her the world, it was sealed,
tragedy approaches slowly, but can't penetrate love's shield.

When the teacher's back was turned, he would pass her notes,
simple poems composed by his heart;
one wrote;

"Roses are red, violets bloom high,
the world won't suffice, let me give you the sky"


At home, her beautiful blue eyes cried.

Under the stars they sat, tender soul mates, two of a few,
he didn't understand, a lost child, confused and bare,
her wig fell into her lap, locks of beautiful blonde hair,
looking into her blue eyes he breathed, "I love you"

and with that sacred declaration, the sky belonged to her
with devotion as sure as the sunrise, warmer than mink fur

Later that month, on one incandescent night,
they sat on the moonlit shores, as the western wind sighed
her head on his shoulder, smiling, closing her big blue eyes,
silhouettes upon the sands, holding each other tight

As she slept, as the nightingales fly,
she dreamed of him, her entire world and sky,
never waking up, though a smile graced her lips
with his poem held snug in her delicate grip

"Roses are red, violets bloom high..."



Now a married man of sixty-four, he dreams by and by,
of the two walking the Pacific beach, overcome with smitten smiles,
her childish laugh resounds like heavenly songs in the sky,
for he was her world and she was his light;

in the sun, her beautiful blue eyes shining bright,
in the stars, her beautiful blue eyes shining bright

it is a strange practice, learning to understand someone
it begins with a rough sketch of 'the way they feel about
their parents' or 'what happened to their siblings'
and it progresses on with a Myers Briggs evaluation
sometimes taking their mental pulse in different subjects
marking what they care about and what they don't
enscribing the single sentence of their
self-worth, their desire, and their motivations
on whatever it is that binds the two of you together,
and growing with them and learning the way in which they grow
you know their crystal lattice and you know how it forms
a molecular structure in fractals, in fractals, in fractals
that builds and changes but is always quite the same,

I know what makes you laugh,
I know how to make you cry,
I have learned you and I know
which keyholes can be pressed, slid into, or clicked
I know of all your crevices and your breakages
and I know how to fix them or how to
drive a wedge so deep inside you that you splinter
I can map when your breath is short and I can chart
your secrets on the walls of my heart, kept there
like a case-file in a robbery- you have stolen
me, my very existence,
and there is an arrow and a pin and lines drawn
to every single bit of who you are
I have learned you, I have measured you,
you have been weighed and found wanting
and I know what it is you are wanting in the depths of your being
but the finding of these things is difficult and rocky and awkward
for you have taken what it is that is me and you have
patterned it over the immense and layered texture of you
breaking and filling holes, pouring into a mold
and I am invested, now, for I am made for you,
but there is no turning back and we must go on from here
I learn and change from the people around me
but first I must learn you.

It is a strange practice, learning to understand someone,
but once I understand you, then
now, now we can begin.