This poem is reflection on the loss of innocence. As children, we are quick to believe the fairy tales, the day dreams, and our ability to achieve the impossible. As we age however, we slowly come to understand the harsh realities of life.

"Insomnia"

She cannot sleep.

Night is interrupted by the soft, intrusive turning of a page—

Friction between the worn tissue of his fingertips

And thick, yellowed paper bound by stained canvas.

His voice, raspy and heavy with an authority that his young daughter interprets as truth,

Reads aloud chapter after chapter of the book—

Weaves the words among the silvery needle-point stars

Which pierce the darkened world outside the bedroom window.

He sews feathered wings into the spine of his nine-year-old daughter.

Angelic nuances scratch her while she lies in her bed,

Long after his stubble cheeks graze hers as he kisses her goodnight—

Long after the final page is turned and fiction slides into its proper place between the bookends.

She would not sleep.

Starlight, like a syringe, puncturing the breath of imagination,

Siphons the ink from the printed pages of the book and injects fables into her bloodstream.

Night is interrupted by the vain rustling of sheets, disheveling of objects which invade her bed:

Oversized teddy bears and candy wrappers, later replaced by movie theater tickets

And sticky half-empty bottles of red nail polish.

She holds her parched tongue out to taste the rain which

Drips from those clouds lying just beyond her human reach—

Honey oozing from the Fountain of Youth, hope foaming from the mouth.

Twelve years later she now tosses aside burnt cigarette butts,

Textbooks on Eastern religious theory and

Student-loan notices received in the mail.

Student-loan notices received in the mail

And bills that threaten to freeze her water pipes

And paychecks that will not stretch long enough to shield her legs from the cold.

She shivers.

She will not sleep.

She reaches in desperation for those wings that limply dangle in bent angles from her back,

Realizing now that they are too cumbersome to support the weight of her mortality.

Her fingertips are tickled ever so slightly by the tainted feathers

That cannot dust off the earth from her toes.

Night is interrupted by the sudden buzzing of her cellphone—

Vibration between the cold metallic device, as he texts her goodnight,

And the sweat sticking to her pale palms that she buries beneath her sleeves.

Her gaze falls to the window, slithers in between the blinds that hang

Above shelves devoid of aged books and weakly bound fairytales.

Outside the dark persists, stars shoved to the shadows behind flickering street lamps.

She draws the sheets tightly to her nose.

She sighs.

Heaven will not come with morning.