Neverland was never good enough for you
Just a dash of pixie dust didn’t make much sense
But snorting it short circuited your whirring brain and made time stop
So you could douse yourself in Eau’ de Invincibility
And pretend everyone else was smaller than you.
Peter was too stingy and stringy for your dark palate,
So you beefed yourself up with crocodile tears
And bullied little lost boys, seduced impressionable little girls
You swallowed their whimpers behind Peter’s back
They were sweeter than starlight
And Tiger Lily’s smiles from beneath her feathered headdress
Even Peter’s delighted crow when he chopped off Hook’s hand couldn’t compare
You spent too much time flirting with mermaids by stealing shells from their long locks
And fumed when you found out Peter had gotten his first kiss before you
You hated Wendy on principle
Clearly you were more deserving of thimble kisses -
Because you were more bloodthirsty for it
Who else kept Peter from being disgustingly squeaky clean?
You knew he thrived on thoughtless mischief
Enticing the innocent from their beds
But you coaxed out their feral corruption
Inviting them to don the hides of wild animals and scramble beneath tree roots
Matting their fur pelts with muddies spider webs
Peter pretended not to notice when some of the boys disappeared,
But he couldn’t have failed to see his minions thinning out as they aged
Slivered memories forgotten to the shadows as he raced through games of pretend
After all, it was Peter himself who made the rules,
However glittered by a misguided pixie he might be.
You liked to insist you were not meant to be tied down to the heels of a semi-mortal’s soles
You hated limits and rejoiced in going where others wouldn’t dare to follow
Conspiring in the midst shrieking laughter and pounding feet
Planting the seeds of discord between families and relationships
Gently lying to rest the blue print sketched mechanics
Of what would make those around you implode
You exulted in the idea of crumbling infrastructure
Made eyelids sleepy during playtime as you sipped absinthe out of chipped tea cups
Just a hazy figure hovering between nightmares
So indistinct and soft, many were fooled into taking your hand
Thinking you were coaxing them towards starlight
Instead of over a cliff and down past sharp teeth towards a ticking gullet
Every time you let their fingers slip from your grasp
You savored their horrified expressions
The cracks and crunch of their bones
Chuckling at their naïve notion that you would always be the one to save them
Sometimes you gave in to their pleading eyes and gaping jaws
Swooping in to save a few here and there
Treasuring the way they clung to you
Knowing that in sparing them,
You’d won more gratitude than Peter could ever hope to hold
You allowed your darkness to swell with their mistaken notions
That you could be a hero, if it suited you
You knew villainy better suited your passing fancies.
You used to have me constantly looking over my shoulder
Glancing into the shadowed corners of my mind I used to linger in
But I quit playing with shadows a long time ago
And you refuse to step into the light.