The Lost Boy

Your Peter Pan suit

stole the remaining fragments

of your innocence.

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I wrote this haiku almost two years ago. The occupant of that magic outfit has left my life interminably, and for the longest time, without his knowledge, I suffered under his clenched grip. I struggled for almost two years, ever since his initial departure. Thinking about that stuns me. I would laugh and point fun at my own childish refusal to let go but for the fact that I had no idea at the time what I was even holding on to. TWO YEARS. This summer I finally pulled free of his burning grasp, and left the world of adolescent daydreams behind, promising myself that from now on, I'd approach love with a level head. I promised to keep my wrists far out of the reach of any hands attached to mendacious bodies. This summer I celebrated the end of two years of intermittent misery. This summer I embraced once more the truth that I choose to live with an open heart. I have never been happier, with arms wide open, than I was less than two months ago.

Somehow he too seized my arm.

I do not want to be back in Neverland, but I cannot escape.

Pixie dust, too, is hard to come by.