Springboarding
captured children,
locked in
vending machines,
like princes in the tower.

Swiping the barcode
imprinted upon their foreheads,
placing them in playpens
--free range, of course--
and listening to the stories
that caused them
to,
in this precise order,
fill,
spill,
chill...

To empty their lungs,
to rage against the machine
that first boiled blood
into the deflated veins
of their youthful tendencies.

Birthing a furlough,
for when
the wild
and profane
wish for scream time:

babes in the wood,
before figureheads to die for.