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A Poem by Clara O.
He’s just a young boy who loves his sheep
Every sunrise the boy runs away from home
Ditching his argumentative parents to escape to his happy place
He runs out of the house
Always without shoes, without apologies, without regrets, and without being noticed
They call him the lost boy
His nickname was coined when the townspeople went on a manhunt after he was lost for 16 hours
Eventually people stopped obsessing over his strange behavior
Then a fate worse than death for him occurred
He was alone
His brain dealt with the loss by turning the human race into the enemy
Days or maybe months later he found relief
The lost boy never went to school
So when the relief came, his empty schedule became filled to the brim
And so his daily routine commenced
He awoke with the words “filled to the brim of my hat” on his lips
He crept down the stairs always avoiding the creaky steps that would surely wake the villagers within a three mile radius
Reaching up to the highest hook, the lost boy snatched his velvet red hat that always brought a cute and crooked smile to his face
He began his long walk through the barely sunlit forest
Always venturing to the small pasture with the shack located miles away
The sheep lifts its head up and prances over to the gates the minute the boy’s tiny feet step into the shack
The shack is dingy and dusty
But it’s home to the lost boy, it’s his peace
Entering the shack always elicits a little cough from the boy
Like clockwork, when the lost boy coughs, the sheep makes a garbled noise that the boy knows is the sheep’s way of saying, “Hi, you aren’t lost, you aren’t alone, I love you”
Or maybe the sheep is trying to mimic him, that would be funny
But of those two options, the boy wisely chose the first
The boy struts over to the loving animal and runs his tiny hands through the sheep’s fur
He can’t organize his thoughts without the sheep
He’s a savant and it’s his secret
Nobody but the sheep is in the know
People are just an annoying illusion to him
They speak down to the lost boy as if he is an idiot because he never spoke or he took to long to respond to their mundane words
What they didn’t know is the lost boy will rule the world one day
He is smarter than life itself but nobody including him knew it yet
Only one being knew the boy’s brilliancy
The sheep
The fluffy animal’s intuition was remarkable
That’s why the boy loved the sheep and the sheep loved the boy
When the numbers attacked his brain, the sheep gifted the boy with comfort, stability, and love
The sheep’s fur would allow the boy to slow the stream of symbols flowing rapidly through his brain
Soft fur grounded him
It brought the boy back to Earth, where he recently decided it was okay to stay
His attacks used to make him want to leave the Earth, but there was nowhere else to go
If the savant in the boy’s body ever took over and caused him to faint, the sheep was there to catch him
It was brave and adorable
The sheep would race over and let the boy fall on its back to minimize the boy’s pain
In return, the boy continuously worked on cleaning the shack, and taking care of the sheep
Their loving symbiotic relationship got him through his childhood
When the sheep passed, its memory lived on and the boy did too
The boy and his incredible mind matured
He gained knowledge at a rapid-fire pace
He trained himself to calm his mind with the memories of his beloved sheep
Throughout his life the sheep was always in the center of his mind
Since the day his sheep passed,
He not only said the words, “filled to the brim of my hat” in the morning
He softly uttered, “Hi, you aren’t lost, you aren’t alone, I love you”, every night right before he shut his eyes, and dreamed of the sheep that kept him sane, alive, human, and a magnificent savant.
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