Twilight Hearts

Diminutive One, as I've mentioned before, is a writer.

He is bursting with stories and poems and epics and tall tales. As young as he is, it's clear that he has a gift for language, imagery, prose and story telling, though he is still a little clumsy with the words he so adores.

And he longs to be a good writer. He longs to know the all the secrets of the craft and to improve his skills. He asks to read things I have written and seeks to emulate.

He often asks me how to improve a phrase, to make it richer and more evocative. He asks me for synonyms so often that I finally, with exasperation and gratification in equal measure, showed him Thesaurus.com.

He was stunned and delighted, and spent the next hour looking up words and making notes. It is now bookmarked on his creaking prehistoric computer, that is not good for anything much other than storing the torrent of creativity and emotion that spills from him.

So I know this about him. And still, on occasion, he manages to catch me completely by surprise.

He wrote this poem the other day, and without a word to anybody, hung it on the refrigerator, waiting anxiously, and I think, fearfully, for someone to notice it.

Twilight Hearts by Diminutive One

The twilight off on a moonlit breeze
Shines on a perfect flower
Anonymously cluttering my hands to perfection
It shines on the girl of my love
breaking my heart
Two flowers to choose from
I choose the one that smells of the most luxurious rose petal
My wish to spend all eternity in your lovely, delightful presence.

Is it me? Don't you just want to sob? He is nine, people. Jesus, isn't that too young for a broken heart? Isn't that too young to have pain so great that it needs to be written down, purged, exorcised from his aching soul?

SIGH.

He has a poet's heart, and that I fear, will lead to it being broken many more times before he finds the girl of his dreams; the girl worthy of his twilight heart and petal laden caresses. I hate to think of him hurting, pining, hungering.

That kid...that kid is going to do all the things I never did myself. He is going to be a great writer someday. People will say his name with reverence and awe. He will be a mentor and a role model.

Perhaps he will win a nobel prize for literature. And when he does, I will bring out these carefully pressed pieces of his tender, budding self to show him.

"You see?" I will say to him. "It was always there, and I always knew."

Goddamn I'm proud of that kid.