This is how the world begins:
somewhere, something small changes,
as if by chance, by some indiscriminate mutation,
time, inestimable time passes,
something more changes,
and at once,
change decides for itself.
This is how his world begins:
small and dark and brown,
fraught with fear and damp and noise.
It is unknowing, immediate,
fragile.
It is his.
It is what he is.
Then, change—
a flash, a
glimpse of clever darting eyes,
green as the depths of the river
where he chases frogs too fast for his boyish hands.
It is enough.
Who he is is razor-balanced,
precise, tender, afraid.
It is not enough, some days, to
look into her eyes,
find who he is.
Her eyes read passion, laughter, life—
but never certainty,
always change.
So he changes. It becomes his life,
a breathless tripping of fast tongues,
fearful dance of arms and legs,
clever twists of truth.
He hopes it is enough for her;
she wants change, doesn't she? She is change.
But one day he trips too far,
and loses her.
He cannot catch her again.
And something is wrong—
the world is dark and brown,
no more small, but fearful still,
because now it has teeth,
moon-white fangs that call for blood;
and though she is there,
with her laughter and her smile and her
changing, changing eyes,
he cannot see her past the edges and tears and fading screams.
So he follows the white fear,
because it is all he can see now.
It becomes his life,
still taut and tender and afraid,
only without her.
He tells himself it is enough,
that he is living,
and some days he almost believes it.
And then something breaks—
changes,
and he is aware of himself.
He sees her, again,
still changing him,
because that is what she is.
And he has found himself again.
It does not matter to him, yet, that it is not enough.
The green eyes are gone
and it strikes him through the chest,
but the truth is,
they burn in his own every time he closes them,
insistent,
wide and terrible and amazing.
It does not matter that they are gone from his sight
when they stand like sentinels
over his guarded heart.
Always, always—
when he plays the tongue-tripping game,
when he makes himself subtle and changeable as water,
he knows it is really her.
She is who he is.
This is how the world ends:
with a rush,
a whirl of being dissolving into naught,
motion coming to rest at last.
This is how his world ends:
with a frightful dance coming to close
as a circle completed;
with a gleam of moon-white fangs
and a flash,
a glimpse
of forest-green eyes.