Prophecy (xyz)

“I don’t want them to take away my demons, I am scared they will take my angels too” (Rainer Marie Rilke on Therapy)

Sallow-skinned with large pale watery eyes,

Skin so fair her blue blood shows.

Such a translucent child;

I swear the whole world can see her fragile life

Pulsing through her veins.

Hardly enough skin to separate her

from the world around.

Her enormous consciousness includes whole worlds;

Television springs such tears

A paternal scolding could never bring.

A frail and beautiful life she is,

she will need fierce angels to watch over her.

She will learn to push the world away,

Separate, distinct, with a façade of arrogance.

She will learn the human art:

Of turning papery skin into the toughest of hides,

Of hiding a fiercely emotional heart

Under layers of indifference.

One day she will come to me, wondering:

how it was so easy to lose all she held dear,

and why it is so hard to regain her innocence,

without losing the distance she needs.

One day she will come to me

with child’s eyes still, that say:

“Look what the world’s done to me”

I wouldn’t have it in any other way;

so many thick-skinned thick-skulled people

are the cause of her pain.

I’m so glad she can’t become

the thing she has always hated.

Seeking a balance,

she will learn to tread carefully.

Nurturing her emerging wisdom;

holding back just enough,

so her precious understanding

is not stolen by the world.

She will then learn; her thickened skin

kept her blue blood flowing,

And so kept mine.