i don't believe in muses ... only our spirit, that's where our words come from; our spirit, and our hearts.

While i like the poem, i prefer the prose, your descriptive paragraph is beautiful.

Thank you. Not sure where my mind was wondering last night that lead to this.

Sometimes one needs both forms to express themselves. Your muse has something in common with mine. 

I was trying to mentor him, well...  mentor with the occasional side benefit (did I mention he was pretty?).  He was enrolled in OK's only HBCU and doing alright. Really good in his core classes but not so great in his Gen Ed. I was helping him with little things like telling him, "You're intelligent and capable of doing this" and life skills like how to make a budget. He was trying. He'd slide back a bit now and then but was generally making progress forward. He planned his mothers funeral when he was 17, his father wasn't really around and wasn't much of one when he was, and his grandmother had never been quite sure what to do with this fae changeling.

The corset was one of the more expensive gifts I've ever purchased for anyone but I'll smile to my last day remembering his reaction when he opened it up.  We were talking on the phone while I was looking for one and I mentioned they made corsets for men.  Oh my!  He was legit offended, "I don't want a corset for a man!". I apologized and said I'd only mentioned it because I was surprised they existed (which I was). He was overwhelmingly giddy with joy when he opened it his birthday gift up and found a black corset with spring steel boning. Fit him perfectly and he looked real good in it -- especially when only in that and a pair of lace pa....  ahem. ...  sorry, got sidetracked (have I mentioned the boy was pretty?).

Then, a few years ago, he had a psychotic break of some kind. Definitely intense paranoia, possibly some schizophrenia. Called me one night about 3am talking about how he was afraid to go back to his grandmothers because of reasons that didn't make sense to my still half-asleep brain and that he never did remember later. Started to self-medicate with questionable substances from dubious sources. Got kicked out of the University.  The last time I saw him I told him he needed help that I couldn't give him.  That I still loved him and cared about him -- but that I no longer trusted him. Hurt to say that, even though it was true.  He was essentially homeless. I gave him $ to get to the agency in town that could help him.

A couple of weeks later there was an article in the local paper that a body had been found floating in the retaining pond that is just north of the housing addition I live in that they were having problems identifying. There had been some ID but he'd been in the pond long enough it wasn't readable. Placing a phone call to the local PD Dept. to ask if the person they found was a black male in his mid 20's was not a call I ever want to make again. Thankfully, the person they found wasn't African-American.  I think he's ended up back in the Tulsa area based on the last time I did a records check on him.