I’m open like the book I long to write,
with rosy eyes and sunlit hair,
a promise from an unpromising start.
And stories were a treetop
for little birds to perch.
With the wave of a wand
and the flip of a page,
we could fly.

We were born in the deep dark,
chewed and churned out by mechanical whirs
and to be cog in the wheel was a
hope and then it was a
dream and then it was a
hazy vision and then it was
gone.

We turned away.
We visited our headstones and we were bathed in light
We ran in the virgin forests of our minds,
the last refuge for an elfin child of fire and brim- and hate.
And we found delight where they found trash,
a lonely wardrobe
a snowy owl
pennies for our eyes.
And we hid our pain
these worlds and worlds away
in the reader’s game and writer’s craft.

And you must know my life is pen and ink,
I tend with ardor, love, and steady hands
to art, to stories, words I feel and think,
those pretty youthful leaves and wedding bands.

So on dewy nights
when cicadas hum and stars outshine,
my young heart and my old soul can dream
these worlds and worlds away.