My child.
My one and only. 
Your edges are mine. 
Your innocence plays at this old leather face in the wind.

My heartbeat; the engine for the rudder made of skin stretched too tight on me.
For you, it's a perfect fit. It's perfect music. 
Your hand fits in my hand, marrow in my core.
I go soft and hollow for you, malleable to your presence. 
We are humble warm eyes, meeting for the first time,
Every single day. 

Living together in this perplexing contortionists' world,
You are my future, and my comfort. My blood and breath in a pheonix,
This silence between us is my lore, looking up at me, 
simple and pure, eyes full of a memory of a lover who is no more.
No more, but that half stays on.
And my half, it stays strong. 

I never thought I would grow up to be so amazed
At all the answers to all the questions in every world I have ever imagined,
just watching you. 
Watching you learn and grow and take those stilted, awkward steps
as I try not to be your padded room, in more ways than just one.

We fight; we're animals you and me. Your blood is just as hot as mine,
But what we have runs so much deeper.
Family.
Uncomfortable, necessary words for the end of a day, 
Like the bars on your crib,
Your cardboard boxes when you leave, in ten years. When you leave in twenty years.

The parts of me I'll miss most are in you,
Whom I will miss most dearly of all the riches
in every fairytale we've ever lived together.

Amen.