Refined

The first line.

That’s all it can take. A statement.

Sometimes bold, sometimes not.

It is exactly what it needs to be.

It can grasp you, choke hold,

demanding to know who you are and why you’re reading it.

It can take your hand and guide you through.

It can push you, head-first, into another universe.

It can offer you a roll of the dice,

or a look into the mirror,

a table at the feast.

Leave you cold. Leave you warm. Leave you flustered.

Make you think you want to quit, then watch as you can’t bring yourself to.

Stamp itself into your mind.  A tattoo you forget about

until you look over your shoulder.

Permanent.

An experience that will never vanish.

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Second star

Like fairy dust on my skin,

your words are enough to always lift

me up.

Even when I’m down,

sunk to the bottom of the ocean

by Captain Hook

in his vain attempt to distract

himself from time

ticking,

ticking

away, like the strength of muscle and bone

as age sets in.

But he forgets he is in Neverland,

where time is endless.

So are we,

if we stay hand in hand.

A shadow’s footsteps (draft)

The shadow of the second star

glides across creaking boards and

bloated sails, summoned by its youthful

keeper to sew it tight for the morn.

Safe from adults, hooked and

wigged, who pillage every source

for glittering trinkets and the dust

that brings spells of flight.

Yet twisted intentions hold no key,

only one power can grant the skies.

Belief.

From the full-lipped colours of

wild flowers, to the salt of deepest

seas, in the shimmer of a mermaid’s

scale and the warmth of a firefly’s glow

lies the echo of magic’s pulse, keeping

the ever grasping hands of Master

Time distant as dreams of rushing

hordes and striking clock towers.