Child's Play Poem by Sarah Cotnam

the pain
took me a while:
a while to accept,
a while to submit to it.
how could
some small interaction
end this way?

I'll recount for you
what was done
that late summer day;
picture the sun setting
and listen closely to this spell:

I tried to take
what was once mine
something that once was...
You remember what once was, don't ya?
Well,
'That', was what I was trying
and tried
to get back.

I heard the angels!
I thought I did;
I thought I heard their echos
when in a cave; I had whispered their names.
I heard the angels sing!
(maybe it was the devil,
or maybe,
as you said,
it was only my imagination)

Told me to grow up.
Told me to stop eating sand
claiming it to be caviar and lobster and
anything rich I could think of.
I was king!
I knew I was!
I thought I was,
so... I was.

I tried to take back
what was once mine,
what was once my kingdom
of good food and three walls
which echoed my voice
and signaled the angels!

But I'm burdened now
with a pain:
a pain that was given,
not given, -earned;
I earned my broken wings,
my broken crown,
and my feasts of sand/

It just took you to say,

Play-time is over!