In The Woods

Hiding from the plotting eyes
who want to make an angel
by the death of one’s heart,
stripped naked of illusions,
crumpled wings of featherweight dreams
stretched in the woods
where trees are invented
to shelter the tears.

Can’t keep the wounds
from staining the hand me down gown,
they drip with knife wounds to back,
hoping there’s some magic left
that can make the pains disappear,
but this forest in the head
is filled with ghosts
instead of fairies.

Remembering Hansel and Gretel,
can there be a gingerbread house
in this private peace
where a witch doesn’t own your head
and will devour you in your sleep?

Problem with paradise
dwelling in the brain,
its beauty is often acid,
the landscape needed for freedom
ends up having bars.

Want to stop the screams
echoing in the leaves,
but autumn for the memory
only comes went you stop thinking,
which seldom happens
unless it is to worry about
some place you can escape
without more wolves than flowers.