The Boy With Lauging Eyes Poem by Starfish ZA

The boy with laughing eyes,
with innocence and wisdom intertwined,
a heart still open to the world,
not knowing what the years would leave behind.

You walked into the years with hope,
with kindness written softly in your ways,
but life would lead you through dark places,
and ask too much of far too many days.

There were walls that tried to hold you,
years that took more than they ever gave,
yet somehow they could never reach
the gentleness and love you chose to save.

You came back changed, but still yourself,
with scars that few would ever truly see,
still finding room to laugh and tease,
still giving others what you needed quietly.

And that is how I remember you—
not only for the battles you endured,
but for the warmth you carried through them,
the love you gave, unguarded and assured.

And now a year has gone by,
another birthday not shared,
and even as the emptiness enfolds me,
in my heart you are still there.

Not forgotten, never distant,
though I cannot reach you where you are,
you are carried in the love you left behind,
like a light that travels from a star.

Sometimes I still see the boy you were,
that laughter shining brightly in your eyes,
and wonder if somewhere beyond this world
that same light is dancing through the skies.

Perhaps you finally found the freedom
that life so often kept beyond your view—
no walls, no chains, no heavy years,
just endless sky unfolding over you.

And now a year has gone by,
another birthday not shared,
and even as the emptiness enfolds me,
in my heart you are still there.

Not forgotten, never distant,
time could never take that part away—
for the boy with laughing eyes still lives
in all the love that chose to stay.