I've been inventing this boy
in my mind for years,
this image in black and white,
a painting made of poetry
strewn together by a
train of thought blown far off course in a flurry of
desperate imagining.
I built him with a ribcage
that isn't perfect, gaps between
the bars of the prison cell
where a bird beats its wings against the confines of his chest;
someone had to let it
go free someday.
I dreamed him up with
lips like snowflakes
and a voice like a secret
and he inhales pixie dust
and exhales songs without words
and I fall asleep
with my ear against his t-shirt
just to revel in the music
of the rise and fall of his chest
and you might call that ridiculous,
and I probably would have too,
not so very long ago.
But not now.
Not when I keep stitching together
the story of a boy with
dreamcatcher eyes
and a heart that makes me want to
believe in something again.