A seashell pressed sweetly to her chest.
A firm promise of this instant.
The childhood she once knew has returned and has come in the form of a sunset.
She smiles.
For she understands what this array of soft clouds tangled up in rays of sunlight means.
Everything has a meaning.
Every person touches you in some way.
Words are kind for they always teach.
She is always looking for her meaning and she is rarely disappointed.
Fingers trail softly on the lip of her gentle yellow mug, her nails curling around the white illuminated curtains like a gown for an evening.
Her lips press softly to the sky.
"I know you." She whispers.
And she never whispers quietly.
Tears warm and kind have slipped down the pillow of her thinning cheeks and hold her together like the heart that is swiftly breaking.
Words penetrate more than the waft of rain-scent on an august evening, pattering against the roof, against the wide glass window, and against the walls of her heart.
She believes inexhaustibly in the magic she knows is real. She can feel it. Why can't they?
Magic.
A word too often used and too little remembered. Rarely does a human above a child know what that word truly feels like.
"I believe you." She speaks softly to the clouds, her chest a blaze like the blue sky.
She sits.
She listens.
Her gentle hands rest softly over her chest as they always do when she feels the magic. When she is alive.
"I always believe in you, Peter Pan. Always."
This is her farewell of sorts.
This is her reckoning of childhood.
And there she is--no longer a woman, but a child. A girl.
So delicate.
So free.
So alive again.
Then the wind touches her stained cheeks and whispers to her gently.
She cries once more.
Crying is not a bad thing, it is a beautiful capability, I've always believed.
"This is the music I hear." She listens to the sky.
"This is the promise I will make." Her chest rises and falls gently, every lift and fall releasing the woman she knows she cannot be.
"I have to let you go." That is her promise for every one.
For the sky.
The moon.
The soft clouds.
For him.
For herself.
This is her promise, above all, for the sun setting slowly reminding her there is always time to love.
After all, time is chasing all of us
and we can never run too fast.
-k.p.b.
