to the one who sings my soul

And I remember when I lay on my mattress curled up tight, clinging to myself and grieving the loss of my innocence, that I heard your voice and I listened more closely then to the sound of my heart beating and of the others around me, and suddenly pain was beautiful and tears worthwhile, and your voice took my soul and sent it soaring beyond what I could have ever idealized into existence, you flung me above the oceans of my failures and the mountains of my heartbreak to a place where great winged owls visit my window at night and a golden lion takes me racing through fields alive with spring, and you reminded my soul of its own mortality and dependence to gravity, and I loathed you for it, yet it reminded me that if at least I can feel this world your voice sings of, then the locks and bars behind which I breathe are less than locks and bars and yet when my breathing is labored by the pain in your song, they are so much more. And I loved you for it.  And my soul screamed with a prayer that was gone before I could remember how it went, and even now I can see it catch and linger in your eyes and dance through your hair as you sing my soul to life.

Your hair falls round your face and down your neck, on top your ears and sometimes falling into your shining eyes, reminding me somehow of the strongest trees in the deepest forests, full of life and breathing adventure, curling and flying every which way, never quite the same as the morning before, sunlight filters through to set your eyes on fire, and every morning after looking more and more alive, soft and gentle, at the mercy of the wind which breathes my soul to life.

Never stop laughing.  Don’t let the pain of which you sing steal your smile.  And now I see that though fairy tales are just what they seem to be, and happy endings stale and echoless, there is still this part in us all that strives for them and sings and cries and even dies for them.  Very few of us ever will find even an instant of truth that can compare to what our cold hearts would recognize if they ever heard.  But we are all deaf and most shall never wake, fewer still shall find what they tell themselves they need, and even those who find it will find it stale and echoless, tasting bitter and leaving their souls still starving for what they convince themselves they must have done wrong. So it has been more than I have ever had the right to ask for to feel my soul die and be raised to life again each time you raise your voice in song.  And I have found that though the longing may never be fulfilled, it has been enough to even know the longing.  For somehow I know that if I tasted of that fulfillment, my heart would long for it so much that I would not be able to bear these locks and bars which block me from the world of which you sing.  

Do you, even you, know the world that shines through in your song?  Do you even know you sing of it?  Can you feel the fire it has awakened inside of me?  Do you know, and is this what makes you sing?

Or do you sing because you do not know, and yet you know as I now do, that even knowing of the longing for it is enough to go on singing?  And will you never stop longing for it, never stop laughing, never stop believing in a world beyond what anyone could ever idealize into existence, one where trees grow taller than the clouds, stronger than towering mountains of heartbreak, and sunlight filters through their green branches, setting our eyes on fire and setting us free to the mercy of the wind which breathes our souls to life?  Where great, white, feathery soft owls come on wings like the sky and lift us beyond the sea and into a waterfall of stars, give us wings of our own and teach us to race with golden lions through fields alive with spring, and we find that our eyes are overflowing with a wild and gleaming light which floods our hearts and teaches us to sing, there someday may we meet, and I will laugh with the voice of a thousand planets and swirling galaxies of colors no one has imagined which are ours to explore, and the sound of it will send your hair falling round your face and maybe into your dark forest eyes, and you will smile and you will raise your voice,

And you will sing my soul to life.