The mind is not a kindly place,

there the devils always wear my face

and the maybe-fey with claws out chase

their lovers over graveyard plots.

Don’t wander off the road, they said,

so I leave breadcrumbs in my stead,

wind through the pathways in my head,

to chase down wayward thoughts.

Will-o-wisp whims float on through,

to draw me from the road into

my foolish fancies about you

I take from stale, old plots.

They said, don’t eat the fairies’ wares,

not twilight plums, nor glass-green pears.

But I know no other fruit compares,

to these phantasian woods’.

The taste is not quite bittersweet,

you’ll starve, however much you eat,

but nothing from this life competes

to mights and ifs and woulds.

I consume Phantasia’s goods.

What if I knew your touch so well

that your soft fingertips could quell

the waves of shame that drown me?

I see windows to another life,

one where I’m somebody’s wife,

or was that a different maybe?

I’m hungrier each day I’m lost,

a low cost for this cure, I prefer

an empty gut to the empty ribcage

I endure your presence on the edges

of my life, take a knife and carve

open my chest, and let my blessed heart

rot raw in the sun. Fill the space

my lungs left, now bereft of the breath

I held when I saw you. I hallucinate

another world—

The fey fruit never lasts too long,

its hangover is much too strong.

Sometimes I talk to empty rooms,

say the words I’d only say to you,

but it seems no matter what I do,

these days life is a tomb.

The dusty road is long and grey,

I wish away another day,

under my skin the fey-kids play,

and I long to consume

the wine of what-could-be,

stay on the road, they said to me.