"One for sorrow,

Two for joy,

Three for a girl,

Four for a boy,

Five for silver,

Six for gold,

Seven for a secret never to be told"

Most people stop just shy.

They never realize there is a place between awake and sleep, where the events of the day vanish in a jumble of forgotten sights and sounds and words that the eyes see and ears hear, but the mind doesn't see as important. The sound of footsteps on the sidewalk. Leaves scuttling across the yard. Dogs barking in the distance. The rhythm of rain on the sidewalk. A boy and his father leave the corner store eating ice cream and smiling as an old couple bicker in the way that only two people who truly love each other can do. Stop lights change color and the radio plays the same song it did 30 minutes ago.

"When you were young"

She says in her soft lullaby tone.

"I saw someone who would remember,

The light of the sun,

Even in dark December,

Snow may come and frost may rise,

But it never stays forever in your curious eyes."

Thus she recites a fear maker's promise, and thus I respond...

"Autumn comes, and leaves may fall

But all in all tis folderol,

And Spring will once more come and go,

And why tis so, we may never know"

It was like this once upon a time. I'd recite her poems without a thought, and so the world was as it ought, but here and now isn't then or there when all we've learned is to despair.

This place.This time between here and there where we are.A realm where the trees devour the sky, and night never ends because it never began. I'm here again. In the place that borders the world of strangers in cars with ill intentions. Dark pools that might be filled with sharks. Poison candy on Halloween. The painful snap of a balloon someone popped too close to my face when I was two. My uncle holding me by my feet over a second story balcony. The spiders in the bushes and the sense of helplessness as I'm strapped into a baby seat on the back of a bicycle and at the mercy of someone else.

If I had any sense of hands they'd be clawing out at anything that might give me a feeling of security. As it stands, I am forced to settle for the sound of my own heartbeat rattling in my chest as violently as any panicked bird trapped in a net. And yet, it is the most comforting sound I can imagine.It means that I am still alive.

Fear.

The angel with the softest voice is singing.

And I feel alive...