Fiend he was and fed away my heart to the pack of nightscratchers in his wake - all the while looking me in the eyes, my superfluous pose, his wired,

wicked laugh echoing at me in my dreams, behind my nose and in every strand of

flitting, fleeting hair, like a mechanical fantasy of Mr. Poe, and It was Then, in that freakishly drawn-out moment of my life that I realized I am not a girl, this nonsense may have

ripped the veins from around that kaleidoscope dreamland of my interior but from now till on I will

live unreal realities outside the mind, bequeathing thoughts and sense but as a woman,

taking my fall with grace, gracing the light with a smile, smiling at the

dreams
                     I
                             once
                                         dreamt.