Have you ever seen a teenage boy
in his bedroom
his powerfully strained voice breaking and cracking with every syllable
he desperately tries to speak to you?
I have.
Have you sat on that same bed, he used to
lie still in, month after month, that's been haunted by
with sickness and sorrows?
I have.
And can you even imagine seeing this boy,
with his head now full of long,
gold-tinted curls of hair,
express to you with watery eyes how it felt to have
simply no hair at all?
I have.
Have you seen that same teenage boy
learning to love, month after month,
first timidly unsure and suddenly in a rush so extraordinary
--so passionately--
like it may be both his last and first time loving?
And now seeing this boy
at his very best, doing exactly what he was put on this planet to accomplish--
creating printers from scratch and designing alternate molecules--
to better the world that has so easily betrayed him…
He can take my heart and perfectly mend it
just as the doctors mended his own body,
so today he can love, and tomorrow--
well who knows what he’ll do?
But at least I can say
I have.