LITTLE BOY BLUE

To befriend a friend who does not exist,
is a child’s intention to draw more attention.

But this was a friend, who I did befriend,
only to realize he was not pretend.

In the bustling town of my school’s little playground,
sat a little boy blue in a field filled with dew.

Every day he would sit with his back to the world.
I would watch from the swings, alone in the crowd.

But one day I moved to the field filled with dew,
I sat at his side and watched time bide.

I had always, always felt pulls to the unseen.
Thus I was invisible to those around me.

But my quiet little friend, no older than I,
asked me a sad question, “Where are my friends?”

For the first time my heart was torn in two,
because he was the only friend I knew.

I sadly trekked through that slow, slow afternoon,
but gave my teacher the names of Little Boy Blue’s.

That teacher called me over the following bright morning,
and asked me how I knew her student ten years before me.

When I spoke of my friend, of the Little Boy Blue,
she grew tears in her eyes like the field filled with dew.

I sat with my friend that last afternoon,
watching peach-blue skies, but only wanting to cry.

“Your friends all left,” I finally said.
But I wanted to say, “I won’t leave you.”

Yet my tongue was tied by my jealousy,
for he thought of them, and not of me.

But then he smiled, for the first time I knew.
It was a little dimpled smile, one I knew was true.

Then Little Boy Blue faded into the sky,
to rest forever between space and time.

I stood there a while growing tears in my eyes,
like the field filled with dew, for Little Boy Blue.