the crossing of the boats.

   When I was younger I made a story about a girl named Lyra, and I believed it would make an entire world. 

When you’re young you run and find boats that lead to wild places, and bears that dance by fires and scream  beautiful nonsense into the sky.

   When you don’t care you dream and get lost in your imaginings, and you aren’t afraid because your dreams are real, and you snarl and growl and bark and bite all you want and run till the ends of the earth and beyond.

   And I was king of entire worlds, and I met great monsters with great sad eyes and great sad voices and great sad faces like goats and hair like seaweed, and they loved me and I loved them.

   Back then all the time in the world wasn’t enough for all the things we did and wanted to do, and all the places we went to and wanted to go. And the nights were filled with lights and music and ghosts, and the days we spent making stories out of feathers and cats and turquoise rings, and there was no sleep because we were gods and gods didn’t need sleep.

   I was king of worlds and I had deserts redder than red and mountains higher than high; I had seas of dreams and catacombs and forests and magic caves and waterfalls and rivers like silver run.

   And we built forts out of rocks and wood and flowers, and stood trees on end for the heck of it, and dug tunnels the length and breadth of the known universe. We made up a hundred different languages for our own and conquered aliens from outer space and made them our friends. We tumbled down snowhills and raced owls and jumped the ocean two leaps at a time, holding our breaths.

   And then the sun fell down and we held a war where everyone was good and everyone was bad. We flew into wild redsome rages and laughed and made a great big bonfire where we burnt three-legged men made of straw and waited for the snows to come.

   Then one day we quarreled and got angry and left. I was trying so hard to figure out if being alone was better than being angry so I ran and ran and ran and got chased by demons with red eyes and found out we were all just pretending because it was so hard, and it was easier to lie and shout and rage and roar and tear off arms and be sad.

   Then all of a sudden it got better and we built another boat, and we followed the wandering sun back into the sky, and maybe it wasn’t so hard anymore. 

Now with each rising I rise, and with each falling I fall, and I am the sun herself asplendour and asunder all the same.