Stolen

By Grace Holmes | Lyric Essay

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Come away, O human child!

To the water and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping

than you can understand.

Away. Come away. Away from what you’ve known. You’ve wandered so far from who you’ve been.

Your mother’s gentle, guiding hand, replaced with the devious influence of ungracious strangers, masquerading as Peter Pan.

Your little arms once hung around your father’s sturdy neck, now they hug a neck of glass, your knees to your chest on the bathroom floor; on the frigid tile, your skin, it burns.

Your faery friends showed you forged wonders, faux marvels.

You stared wide-eyed at the wild world you’d won.

They tell you they love you. And maybe they do. Sincere or not, they were sacred to you.

Don’t blame yourself for the foxy grins you missed. When worth is what you’re lacking, even shifty smiles can be priceless.

Princess, I’m sorry. You think you’re worthless. This place is pitiless.

Child, I know. Your little fists are empty now, the cotton candy wishes washed away in the water long ago.

Love, I can’t save you. This weeping world has consumed me too.

But take my hand, because at the very least, I can understand.