Lost Innocence

My son is 15 years old. When he was in grade school he was friends with a boy that for some reason always pulled at my heart. I liked him from the first time that I met him. He was kind, with a slightly titled smile. He would chuckle at my jokes and actually got my wry sense of humor. Just like my son. He was also small like my son was at that age. My son has now outgrown my height. I don’t know if his friend has also grown. I haven’t seen him for over a year now. I don’t know if he would still chuckle. I don’t know if he even smiles. Him and my son stopped hanging out when they entered High School. I was sad to see this happen. At the beginning of the school this year, my son became a sophomore. His friend didn’t. His friend is no longer in school. This child I watched grow up is now living transient between a couple of houses in the area. Houses that are filled with other youth who offer him a safe haven to openly escape through drugs. His best friend is now a pipe. It hurts to see him in my minds eye. But see him I do. I see him walking down the road, his back turned towards me, hair cascading to his waist. His pants hung low, his chin titled down. I see him crashed into worn cushions in a curtain less room. His hand dangling at the side with a glass pipe lying on the floor beneath his fingers. Eyes glossy, consciousness in a realm I can’t or don’t know how to enter. I see this little boy and I see my own son. And, although I can glimpse the man my son will grow into, for now, he is still a boy. Just as his friend is still a boy. I want to reach out to him. To touch his face and cusp it in my palms. To pull him into my arms and hold him next to my heart. To tell him that he is not alone and that he matters to me. I want to tell him how much I love him. How my heart is breaking to see him this way. How my chest aches with sadness. How sorrow sinks into my very soul. But I can’t touch him this way. He is on the brink of manhood. Even as I sense his longing to be held he struggles between being the young adult and the child. However, even if I can’t pull him into my embrace, I can still hold him with my heart. I can still reach him through my love. I can wrap my blessings and my desires for him into one of my arrows. The grandest arrow I have ever created. I can shoot this arrow into his energetic being. I can infuse him and surround him with the intention and the purest form of love that I am capable of. And for each boy I see with his back towards me I will send another arrow. Each time I look upon my own sons face, I will send him an arrow. Each morning as I awake and before I go to bed I will wonder where he is sleeping and I will send him an arrow. Each time I sit down for dinner with my son across from me I will wonder if he is eating and I will send him an arrow. I will send my love until he turns his face towards me. I will send my love until he allows me to touch him. And when he is ready, my last arrow will be blazing to light his way back home.