– Thomas Delfi

As a babe, I never knew you, and the world was darker for it. Shadows loomed about me like hungry jackals and I hid near the smallest scrap of light I could find. It would be as a young child that I would first see you shyly peeking at me through forest trees, the bright luminescence of your unearthly, child like form drawing me to you like a moth to the flame. Before I can see you in full, you disappear from view, your insecurity getting the better of you. As a young man, I saw you by a lakeside in the snow covered forest, no longer a young child as I, but a young woman with a pale, curved leg, bared naked and beautiful as it reflects off the still, unfrozen water. Yet you still hide from me, my lovely Artemis, disappearing as I come closer to you. It is only as a man that you finally present yourself in full to me, donning a silky white gown that brightens the whole world in the warm, spring air. We dance across the stars, your elegance blinding and binding me to you, making me eternally yours. The seasons pass, the days fly by, and before I know it my body has become old and crooked. You’ve become thin and sharp, but remain elegant as ever as I notice you beginning to fade away into darkness. I ask myself how I can live without you, for you’ve been my eternal partner, furtively glancing at me from between trees and twirling with me among the loving cold of space. But soon my world begins to fade into darkness as well…and the question melts away from my mind.