There is a boy in my past who went to bed
and learned to play with the fairies of his dreams.
He came to know there was always an escape,
but never seemed to need one.
“Go off and play with the fairies,”
his mother told him,
“they miss you.”

There is a boy in my past who woke up
with fairies beating their wings
against the insides of his conscience,
leaving soft marks on his mind.
There has never since been a feeling
so transcendent.

There is a boy in my past who went to bed
and lay awake, remembering the feeling of magic.
More and more, he was unable to find that place,
but never stopped trying.

That boy no longer understands
what it means to escape this colorless reality.
He does not understand the sweet taste
of freedom or the rush of passion.

Those fairies meant more to him
than just cheap, dreamy thrills.
They were the embodiment of all good things
and the teachers of all human emotion.
It was from them that the boy learned
to perceive life with a colored perspective
instead of the monochrome expectation.
It was from them that he realized
his own personal definition
of a meaningful existence.

There is a boy in my present
who longs for how things used to be.
His mother no longer allows him
to visit with the fairies.
Sometimes he wishes
that she would.