like a childhood dream, forgotten. asking mercy, pleading eyes— for one gaze, a gaze of mine. trembling hands stretched, reaching for my dead skin. *“I love you enough that it hurts,”* it said. From stories once sung to whispers now faint: *“Don’t look at death that way. those eyes—so young, so yearning— for death? I am your breath. Through me, you cry.” “I hold your hues, your unspent fire. Dreams woven in my living halls. How can you let them perish? Why let death claim what I held? Why dance toward dark when I held you in my light?”* life and death— Both love me, differently. One kept me breathing, One kept me swaying. one vanished wanting me, One stayed despite me. yet the blindness— to the one beside me, to the crown of flowers it wore. To the hands that shaped me divine. It was always life.