Summer nights melt into summer days.

A daze.

Amazed, at how our Neverland became something fallible.

When we were young and innocence pulsed through our veins,

words were light and the air hummed with electricity-

Cotton candy clouds over a watercolor sky.

We were wild things.

The ocean left its mark with kisses in our hair.

Marsh mud, like war paint, adorned our bodies.

Our bodies, like molded ivory.

You braided flowers in my hair,

told me to remember Neverland forever.

I need my Neverland now more than ever.

Summer nights melted into Autumn, Spring,

Rinse, Repeat.

I blink, and stand here at eighteen,

left breathless at the rate

my childhood did evaporate.

There’s still flowers in my hair.

My body, still ivory.

My mind, lost.

Those firefly nights without a care became something quite different.

A witness to the world we destroy-

A martyr of my own breed.

I want. I need,

to tell you.

If you find yourself in Neverland,

never return.

For this world, it hurts like a broken bone.

We collect our things and call it home,

and our left to envy,

the youth and their Neverland.

It wasn’t many weeks ago,

When you asked what God meant to me.

You looked down from your throne,

And told me I knew nothing,

Before I even answered.

You tally your Sundays and pin them on your chest.

“Humble yourself” under a God that knows you best?

Please.

It’s easy to say you know God, and to preach, when you’re standing on an altar of

mahogany. Gingerly stepping so not to scuff, but

I can’t hear you from that altar.

I can’t hear you behind those beige walls, dripping with the shame and regret, of children

raised to believe a checklist determines their everlasting life.

They can’t hear you.

I can’t hear you.

Let me feel you.

Actions speak louder than words, and honey, you’re gonna need to speak up.

Stand on an altar of the pain we feel, of our faults and all the ways we’re not good enough.

Where is God? Is he in that golden cross hanging from your neck?

What about the crosses ropes make, tied around necks? In sunsets?

It’s a big jump to make, saying that your words come from the maker’s throat.

I hear his voice in other ways. I lay down at an altar much different than yours.

I learned more from my grandmother. Her hands, knotted like the trunk of an oak tree.

Humbly, she asked. “Please bring me home.“ She smelled of flowers, and folded her hands

in prayer, even when the knots on her knuckles grew too sore for her to sew quilts.

The preacher man on Sunday, he’s got nothing on her.

I guess this is a running list of things I should have said,

When you asked what God meant to me.

I’ve seen him from my praying knees.

Felt him in the embrace of crying lovers in hospital halls.

In life. In death.

In tear stained prayer rugs, weaved with much more than just yarn.

When you see the reflection of your Sunday’s best on that shiny mahogany stained altar,

don’t mistake that for God.

This is a compilation of all the ugly things that lie in my head right now.

I've almost spent a whole season away from you, (I was hoping the cool air would be cleansing)
and still, the thought of you bubbles the acid in my stomach and makes me cry out.
I forget what it's like to be close to a person.  (Tell my friends I said hello.)
Trust is an imaginary concept, amirite? I don't think I did. (trust you)
I took a bubble bath last night, and thought of you.
I scrubbed my skin raw trying to remove it.
Much like your memory, it held fast.
I've come up with a comparison.
You: dog *****.
Me: dog.
Maybe, just maybe.
I can rewire my brain...
To feel disgusted at the thought of you.
My puppy dog eyes can't bear the sight of you.
To be honest, I'm embarrassed for feeling these things.
I wish they'd go away  but   I     can't      stop     feeling     them.

“You’re too young to go to war.” They said.

But I’d been there before.

No blood on my hands or lies in my teeth,

Just the remnants of who I’d been.

The war had been in my mind.

Satan sleeps in the corners of my cerebrum.

Gabriel the arch angel fought valiantly.

He burnt with hope.

Ached of faith and better days.

But still, Satan slept, untouched.

The holy war was only in my mind,

but it was more real than you are to me.

My angel never died. Just laid down in defeat.

And Satan slept.  

So take me, skin and bones, and arm me with your words.

For I’ve already lost my mind, please take my body as well.