• His heart is as black as his nails
    and you would swear, one day,
    you'll see it come up through his throat
    still beating
    with the way he carries on coughing
    fit to burst at the seams.
    He smokes too much, and drinks more
    raising jugs of red wine and rum aloft
    like a general charging into battle
    a defiant pose struck on the sofa
    as he passes out, night after night;
    the only way he can sleep at all.
    when he is sober, he'll stay awake
    for days and days
    until fatigue is almost like being drunk
    until he sees people who aren't there
    sees fairies in the shadows on his wall
    and talks to them, and writes poems
    and whispers, in the dead of night
    "Take me away, please.
    I was never meant to stay here,
    never meant to grow up,
    I swear. It was a mistake, when
    Peter left me--
    forgot me--
    the bravest of his lost boys."