I can’t find my book – the one with all my poems.
Someone took it, placed it out of reach
Behind the headboard where memories crawl out of dreams.
They tell me
To let go of the security blanket formed from my own words
Falling softly around me - shielding me from blows
Of growing up.
To discard the unpolished remains of childhood
Placed so carefully among the jagged edges of nightmares
That softened as I wrote.
They tell me
It is time I lived among the realities people invent
So they do not have to face the broken words
They refuse to recognize.
It is time I grew into my ears and eyes and feet
They’ve forgotten how to use
To learn.
But instead,
I crawl, under the bed, toward the book I know still exists
If only in my dreams and memories
Of worlds
And words
Created and explored.
Someone took it, placed it out of reach
Behind the headboard where memories crawl out of dreams.
They tell me
To let go of the security blanket formed from my own words
Falling softly around me - shielding me from blows
Of growing up.
To discard the unpolished remains of childhood
Placed so carefully among the jagged edges of nightmares
That softened as I wrote.
They tell me
It is time I lived among the realities people invent
So they do not have to face the broken words
They refuse to recognize.
It is time I grew into my ears and eyes and feet
They’ve forgotten how to use
To learn.
But instead,
I crawl, under the bed, toward the book I know still exists
If only in my dreams and memories
Of worlds
And words
Created and explored.