Poetry On Odyssey: To The One Holding Onto Trauma, The Bluest Boy Continues On

Tragic reader with a body so weighted in trauma,
I am here to tell you of a boy
who fights demons worse than you and I can imagine;
ones of his own suffering and ones
of an unmerciful God who has laid at his feet.
Still, he continues on,
his resilience rooted in making things better.
he is a boy we do not deserve; have never deserved.
For he deserves the Universe, and because of such,
I must tell you of him -
I must tell you of the boy who is a whirlwind of love and strength.

He's the boy with blue glasses
and the soft hair
and the warm hands that encased my own.
I remember pressing my palm
into the small of his back as he shifted,
and I remember how delicate he felt.
I remember how gentle he felt
despite a rough spine that had carried him through turmoil
and growth
and change.
He is the most beautiful boy I've ever laid eyes on,
with a smile so full of light it could chase galaxies
and I swear,
I would cross a thousand oceans
and struggle in every single one of them
if it meant reaching him on the other side.

There is nothing I wouldn't do for him
if he would let me;
but my darling boy,
the greatest love of my life,
has a heart of dying embers.
it is not a vessel trying to contain
reckless flames in a single heartbeat
nor is it a rooted casket suffering under its own
smoke asphyxiation.
His heart is a gentle flame,
one just bright enough to see your way home,
and just warm enough to remind me
to keep going when the night
gets too cold.

And if you were to ask me what emotion reminds me of him,
I'd tell you all of them
and none of them
in the same haunted breath.
He is beyond the pinpoint of a single feeling;
the way he feels hasn't been given
a sacred name yet, nor should it ever.
He is the everything we've all been on our broken hands
and bloodied knees searching for.

God sent and unearthly; ethereal and safety -
he is love and home in human form.
And even then…
this feels so inadequate
to all that he ever was,
all that he is,
and all that he will become.
He is the last blinking star in an empty blue sky,
holding onto the hope
that all will be well.

So, gentle reader,
the holder of desperate faith and breathless curiosity,
it is a relief to know that because
the bluest boy with the last starlight smile
is in this trembling atmosphere,
all will be well.
It must be well.
He is the Universe, and he is on our side.

-- he has to be. // s.k.