10 Minutes: Prompt - Poem about a moment from childhood that changed your life for the better

Write a 16-line poem (rhyming or non-rhyming) about a moment from your childhood that changed your life for the better.

Yeah I don't do 16 lines, not given ten minutes
And I probably never did
Probably even back then I could have told you about the world
About my heart, and yours
And about the soul, and life
And oh yes, I could tell you about love.

And I did tell you about love, didn't I?
Those days, those nights beneath the pine trees under the stars
I can still see so clearly in my mind
The dream of how it all went down

So hard so tough so out of reach
But not to me
I could see you, I could feel you
I knew then what I'd know now,
And now I know it all, about those days

I know I taught you how to love in that dream gone by
That story that played out across my mind, over time
I can still see the open-air dining hall
The tables
The flagpole
And I can still hear the bell.

I miss you.
I've always missed you; for some 14 long years now have I missed you
Everything you were
And everything you weren't, not really
But to me you still are, somewhere...

I've tried to find you over the years, as I try to find most people
I found Steve the other day...and I have a rough idea of where Kyle's at
And I even came across Bill, and Nate, and I don't even expect them to know who I am
But I remember them.
We said hello.
And I've got Kevin, even...
But you, well you seem to be impervious to the trappings of the internet
That place where everyone ends up eventually,
Caught up in the sieve of if not a Facebook than at least a Google, but no not you
Or if you, then you pretended otherwise.

I found Mundo, even.
Dead.

It's not fair, it isn't fair, it's not right
To not even get to say goodbye,
Not even know that you ought to cry, out into the night
Like I did for all those years...to you.

I still remember the small yellow piece of paper,
God knows I might even still have it around here somewhere
I never give this out, you said
But you are different, you are special
14 years ago and you knew that I was special but you know...
I knew you were special too.

For 12 years I thought of you, every single day
At least once, one time I'd spare a thought for you
I wouldn't let you go,
Not like I did that rainy afternoon
In my mind
In that place
You know the one
With the porch, and the nurse
And the promises and the heartbreaks
And the growth.

I know I grew far beyond my years then and there
And it never really caught up to me in coherent form
But
It never really had to.

I know what happened then and there,
I know that I became the person I am today
In a way that I never could have
Without then
Or there
Or you.

I'm pretty good at nosing people up from where they've been hidden
You knew I could do it at 12, but we never overstepped boundaries
Nor even approached them
But you knew it, didn't you
You knew it all the same.
And you were right.
And here I am.
And maybe someday I will find you
And I can see all the ways in which my dream was only that
Or maybe
We can see all the ways in which you were right about me
And I was right about you.

Ever since I was a kid.

Word count: 585