The Child who Died Prematurely and Yet Still Had to Live

There was light in the world I was born into
It poured into my eyes but also it poured out from my heart
In it I built dreams that held fast in my waking world
With it I strung those dreams over my bed
Like stars they would flicker in the distance
Yet they were right where my hands could reach them

I would watch them dance above me
Resting my hands behind my head
Lying on grass I couldn't know was overgrown
Because it couldn't be
They liked to kiss my forehead
I thought that was what rain was

The oceans and lakes drew away wherever I meant to walk
They welled around me when they knew I'd better enjoy to swim
Mountains flocked 'round what I deemed should be protected
They made themselves scarce where I felt the wind should soar unbroken
And the wind itself would soar at my pleasure
It would fetch me the sweetest scents from all around my world
It went to sleep next to me and became stillness
When stillness was what I would have

I could not fathom the darkness
My world had no room for shade
It didn't fit you see
How could it?
My world was small in its vastness

Light ran ahead
When I reached a new place
It was waiting there for me
The water and the mountains and the wind
Were already there

And from beyond the limitless finitudes of my own world
She emerged to bestow something upon me
She placed it in my hand
She said it was called "Love"
And I cherished it
Because it would not sink in my oceans
Because it would climb over my mountains
Because it would not bow to my winds

Her actions were not of my design
Her waters, mountains and winds did not answer to my whims
They answered to hers
And she fashioned her whims after my own

I gave my light to her
Of my own volition
Because she didn't have any
She could not build her own dreams
She didn't know how
So she just held it in her hand
And I held her Love in mine

She never did understand my light
Her palms reddened when she held it too long
And she sought to escape it at times
So she expanded the borders of my unending world
And planted an orchard in the emerging space

She sat me down next to her
Under an apple tree
And she rested my head on her lap
Ran her fingers through my hair
I closed my eyes

Although my wind slept
My cheeks grew cool
I clutched her love in my fist
I could not understand
The tree had birthed a shadow
And it grew across my world

The light ran ahead still
It seemed out of breath
A feeling nested in my bare chest
That I would soon reach new places
Before my light did

She left my world in search for a better one
To realize her own dreams
She took my light with her
Left her shadows behind

I never saw my light again
There was so much I wanted to do with it
My dreams withered on their vine
My lakes and oceans died of thirst
My mountains sank into the planes
My wind slept without reprieve
In her orchard I lay awake
Under the decaying apple tree
I am only little
A boy still
My hand yet clutching her love
Dimmer every day