Tragedy

There is no tragedy
without an audience.

Harken, a leaf awake
its stem an unripe green,
promptly whisked away
by a capricious skyward wind.
Curving an arc
of great escape

touched by rays
of a tender sun
it will never
embrace,
and in faltering capacity
taste radiance
it'd rather not witness --
as forces
govern
the upward euphoria
a sinking nostalgia,
spiraling

a
premature
finish.

The first is freedom;
Second despair.
Beyond the nurturing
branches of what was
once kin,
there will be no end
to abandonment
indiscriminate to youth and
order. An ultimate expulsion
to a world of wander
where no dock can or will hold
this cruise with no anchor.

Yet the sun hears.
It stays, no more than
a shining precursor
to luring darkness,
whispering
words soft with tension
against
all weight
of a tireless fate.

There is no tragedy
with no listener.

So if I lose all fight and fall
into a hell
you wish me not to suffer,
do not rally me
to rise again,
but be certain
that it'll be silent
as a tree felled clean
in forests of standing scars.

For there is no tragedy
if I will it not to be.

====================
Dedicated to the person who said that "every kid deserves a cuddle". Both Macca and Mrs Tan are fleeting rays of sunshine I wish I'd more time to spend with, but I know to be content simply having met them. It remains a life of faltering and running away.