The Kite

He is there, moving and laughing, always laughing.

When he laughs, his eyes turn towards me,

for I am the one who makes him smile.

His eyes shine bright with mirth,

just as mine shine bright with unshed tears.

A friend like this I have never known.

No-one, including myself,

will ever severe this bond of laughter that we share.

It is the last, the only connection I have to this man boy,

this wise fool.

I know him better than anyone, yet even to me me the window

to his heart is clouded.

Clouded either from his steadfast determination to fly free,

or from my unending desire to bring him close.

He is like a kite, yearning to soar free, yet afraid to go far, afraid to lose

the self that once was, and still is. His

I, I grasp the string too tightly. I never want to leave this good green earth.

I want to keep him with me.

Yet, even as I hold the string,it pulls at my fingers, jerks as it pulls him,

and he willingly lets it.

He has left all the work of keeping him grounded to me.

I love him. I want him to be my own,

happy to live in the green meadows and sandy hills of my home.

I want to walk by rivers, grow things in the earth, and die under the cool shadow

of the mountain that shaded me when I was born.

Would I follow? Would I leave this plane of existence, and soar far above to distant,

ethereal mountains of mirror and ice?

For him, maybe I would leave my roots, my heart forever bleeding

as it calls for its home.

But I was born without wings.

I stand there for days, for years, holding our string.

He hasn’t glanced back with those laughing eyes for far too long.

There is no more string left to dole out.

He has reached the end. He has reached my end. I let go.