Come away with me at long last;
let us go together into that dreaming spacetime
where we are both no longer haunted
by the remnants of an unprocessable past

and you can laugh with me,
and cry with me,
and finally have the courage to ask

if you can hold my hand
while you at last look into the screaming void
and know
that you have always been

so much more than mere lost and lonely
echoing, windswept sand
sweeping across the dunes
of other people's lives.
Other heroes' rivers.
Other dreaming gods' visions, and virtues, and nights

for I am not Karimang,
in the spaces and times of these words:
I am Kevin,
the one you first saw broken and destroyed
and the one whose worth

you still saw
and knew
and loved
and heard

and now I am the first fire to ride
so fully and beautifully free.
I am the first lion child to turn back the hurts.
To finally embrace our collective destiny

because you
put that flower back in my hair
when I needed it.
When no one else
was there

you called my name
and you said

Kev—

remember that it is because of you
I myself finally learned to dream and dare.

So dream with me, my heart and soul.
Look into that void
and at last make us both not just whole

but real and true.
At last know that

you will always be there for you
and I will always be there for me.

And that I will always love you.
Not just for as long as I breathe

but for as long as you remember
that you alone always had the power
to lift yourself out of your own hell.

Let me at last be your first flower.
Your mightiest walrus.
The first words along this river
of dreaming hopes

and absolutely one tremendously amazing story
to finally one day tell.