My 11th Year (from when I was 11)

My eleventh year
I swear
Was the changingest yet
I fought all the troubles I met

I concurred my fears
And cried less tears
I matured
I endured

Mom went to work
We didn’t go berserk
Dad took over

The millennium changed
Technology grew
I fought to be twelve
And now that I am
I kinda sorta
Miss being eleven.

Neverland Nevermore

(A farewell to childhood)

Last night I knew
He’d come no more
No more tales of pirates, Indians and fairy lore
No pixie dust
And happy-thought trust.
No tinkerbell, her golden hair
Her jaunty, taunting sneer
No mermaids, their rainbow tresses
No lost boys with their endless messes.
No hunting, fishing, fighting, fearless crowing
Tree house forts and dreamed up feasts
And, oh, no flying weightless with the stars
Or dreaming on the clouds-
The sun so near.
No creatures whispered secrets in my ear
No childhood wild and reckless
Magic free and visceral
No heady summer
Next to endless winter
And vital spring
Beside morose autumn.
No, no more of this-
Beautiful whim
But worst of all
No more him.
Gorgeous boy, with electric eyes
Who carelessly, selfishly, never dies
Who possesses all of childhood’s secrets
Forgets…
And so has no regrets
Who smells of summer woods
In fresh clean air
A manchild, without a care
His smile will break you
His laugh remake you.
When only you can wipe his tears
And only you can see his fears
When only he can light your heart
And only he your fire start
Then Neverland who never shares
Will end your priceless never-years
For Neverland loves her Peter Pan
And never-people their small man
So Peter cannot love-
Cannot grow
Cannot change-
Cannot know.
You hurt and so mature
While his childish heart remains pure
And so on that last night
Your last taste of childhood flight
Before your feet are steady
As he turns, about to wave
-But doesn’t-
He’s forgotten you already.

Summer

When you were a child
You could lie in the green summer grass,
Under the hot sun
Watching the blue blue sky
With its white white clouds.
A summer that seemed like it could never end
In a year that seemed forever.

But you knew fall, then winter
Would come.
Bringing a new year
A year that would carry you
One step closer
To that indefinable something.

Laying there, in the grass
With it cushioning you-
Tickling you-
Scratching you…
You knew that pain and pleasure mixed.

Some little bug
Buzzed in your ear
Whispering secrets-
You couldn’t understand.
You were young and old that day
A growing day
You could never forget
And never remember.

A feeling
Like a dream
You think you’ve had before.
Moving would break the spell
Of sun and grass and secrets
So you lay there still,
The way part of you always will
Becoming more you
Even as you were nobody
And somebody, as everybody always is.