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 May 2014
Ariella
deep below the wishing well,
in the tomb of wishful pennies,
live a team of diligent elves,
working day and night.
palms outstretched
they grab each cast away coin as it falls,
clutching them to their grimy chests in hunger.
they box them all up
and melt them down in flat sheets by the dozen
in factory fashion
in precision.
and they build from them tools and weapons;
whatever it is that they need.
their business is balanced on the backs of believers
who pour out their hearts to deaf coins
in scrunched eyes and in whispers
and a flick of their wrists to the darkness below.
perhaps if they knew the fate of their coins,
the industrial dungeon just storeys below
they might have spent their wishes on a shooting star instead,
destined to shatter through space.
Isn't it strange that we wish on things that are going to die?
Like coins thrown into fountains- they're just gonna sink.
And shooting stars- they're going to explode.
Birthday candles are going to be blown out.
So why should  wishes survive?
 May 2014
Ariella
she had a telescope in her pocket.
one of those cool tiny ones, like a pirate might have
if he were searching for buried treasure.
she told me it was magic, let her see
enchanted things
like fairies and mermaids
and little trolls with fuzzy hair.
they were scared of normal people.
they were really shy, she said
but they were real and alive,
breathing air and eating brunch
and taking baths
like us.

she’d look through her telescope when we walked to school
or through the park
lost in it, like she wasn't even there next to me
but somewhere else, on an island
that no one had a map of.
sometimes she’d point, say
“look! in that tree, right there!”
so I’d squint and try to see
what only she could see
but all I’d see was some leaves
or a nest
or nothing at all.

sometimes I’d lie next to her on the lawn
and close my eyes.
and she could breathe an image behind my closed eyelids
and I could feel the breeze as fairies flew by,
and hear the mermaids’ tails sweeping against toasted rocks
and it was like I’d rowed a ship
across that ocean to her island
I’d found the map, I was next to her,
and the world was just as she said it was--
magical.
but the difference between me and her was
she could open her eyes, and still see it all.
but I’d open my eyes, and all I’d see
was some leaves
or a nest
or nothing at all.
"Every closed eye is not sleeping, and every open eye is not seeing." -Bill Cosby

— The End —