And now 10 years old feels kind of lonely
Cause I'm still a kid but I'm stuck at home
Thinking of years the didn't go down
Nostalgia's different now

I'm 12 years old and school's gone to ****
It's not at all how I imagined it
To be cause all I saw was happy
But it's different now

I'm older now, but is it still okay
If I rather stay in my room all day
I'm missing all years I lost
Nostalgia's different now

And she takes the book waiting on the shelf,
smelling of milk, toothpaste and goodnight kisses,
it's pages cracked, worn thin with birthday wishes,
wearing wrinkles wizened by the layers of fingerprints
that traced the silk of mama's voice on every word.

She turns to find him all tucked up in bed,
head cushioned by a mop of curly hair,
arms clutching tight a tattered teddy bear.
His sleepy eyes draw her to his side
and she leans in another once upon a time.

Her voice kisses the curve of every word,
calling to life a world she has to see,
moulding reality to what it ought to be;
a place with swings, slides and just five minutes more ,
sighs breathed to birth a need held deep inside.

A land where all the games are fair,
with candy houses but no cavities in sight,
where all evil is banished by the light.
The winds of time are soothed and still
listening to the clicks of a clock that never stops ticking.

Her child's eyes flutter to dance in dreams of his own
and the bedtime lies shatter behind her eyes.
It's not her son longing for a land where no one dies.
Children are borne of pixie dust and shooting stars
to a world of wonder built for each alone .

Once upon a time is a prayer whispered by mama's at night
to restrain the hurts and horrors of the earth
with the soul wrenching fear she's felt since she gave birth.
See she has to believe in forever and a day
for her love for her son is growing all the while.

She has to believe in love and life and laughter.
She has to hold close the hope of
happily
ever
after.

Your beckoning finger like curling ribbon
Its pained sharp edge beneath the shining
binding me to a catch-22 with gnarly roots;
To paternal blue pierce and maternal chin –
eyes peeping over the creeping cords
pinning me down to the tow-line
where I fit and flinch to be free.
To be me.

A petal haired army saluting the call of the skies
- it made my heart go to her
until I hope her into being
and I look into her eyes -

eyes that shimmer with every shade of springtime
with frolicking lambs and trumpeting daffodils
with the glint of her chocolate stained Sunday dress,
dancing and whirling with the matriarch blues of six generations
to know our dance, but to write her own song -

a song composed of notes she will fashion for herself in
flower petal perfume and dirt and birthday cake tummy ache
and she can write them in gummy bears or wiggly worms
in any way she might choose, on bill boards or in locked diaries
but it will be beautiful beyond words because its her way -

her way - choosing to skim cliff edges over mama's apron strings,
tearing frills on tree branches and turning back her watch to arrive home late
and you can bet when she dreams him in her sleep she won't be feeling that pea.
But so long as she takes her dreams to heart and cuddles them to life
and knows that she is perfectly imperfectly beautiful and remembers that -

that life is lived as much on cliff edges as it is in your own home
that dress tears and stains speak joy every bit as much as a photograph
that mama's apron strings stretch far and wide,
and that though the shades of seasons change, she must sing her song
and dance.