~
The boys of summer.

Johnny once sat under the bleachers, the scar on his tongue, a reminder of the time he bit it after falling from a treehouse. A sack full of yesterday's news in a red wagon, the first and last clues.

Eugene ... the other kid who dropped out of sight on Sunday morning, now the evening edition; now a black spot on the sun.

Why the two-year gap?

Departures and landfalls. But no explanations.

Mom and Dad never comfortable peering into the camera lens. Big brother breathing out vapors until something sparks and all
the old questions came back.

A detective's paradox. No bone. No fragment. No evidence. In his home garage hangs a poster of Eugene to remind him every day.

-- for Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin
~

🏡
🧸👦👩🧔🐕

🌒🕕

🛸
🏡💤
🧸👦👽
🛸🪐

🧸👦👽
🤖👾👺👹👿👻🧚‍♀️🧜‍♀️🦄🧞‍♀️🎅
🧸🤯👽

👽👦🧸🃏

🌒🕕­

🛸🌏
🏡💤
🛸🪐

🌞🕧
⏰🛌

🧸👦🃏

take me
now
before i wake
take my choice
before it's too late
i cannot learn
what you do not teach
i cannot fight
if i believe i am already defeated
take me
now
before i wake
i will believe i escaped
if you do not tell me i was taken

Sixty-three...
Sixty three days
you went missing.

Nine...
Nine weeks
a candle burned in your window.

The same window
you were taken from.

Petaluma, outraged and determined,
became a colony of ants.

Ground searches to mass mailings,
they never gave up hope
and soldiered on.

In a high-tech dragnet
you became the first internet child.

Your anxious mother
fretted over every detail
concerning you:

"I have a daughter out there--without shoes."

You would always be your parents
beloved little girl.

You were laid to rest
the day after the butterflies flew away,
migrating to a warmer climate
where they could play in safety

--the life we wish for all children.

Twenty-five...
Twenty-five years ago
you went away.

A remembrance
that is felt everyday.

Never drop kick an alien,
Or they will shoot fudge in your ears,
And nut in your eye.
Then stick a needle in it,
Then stick a probe up your ****** pipes.

Nobody wants those things done to them, so I advise that you don’t ******* the alien that took you from your planet.

Oh **** the E Mother ******* T is at it again,
Stealing cows and ****.
Running the farmers out of business.
What do they need the cows for anyway.
Is their planet running out of milk or something?
Are their women not producing enough ***** milk for baby alien lips or something?
Makes me so mad that I want to drop kick an alien....
But I need to keep it together,
Because I know what they will do to me if I do.