Not for all North Carolina. Not for all my little words.

Lost Boy
(For Falcon Heene, the Balloon Boy, who almost escaped, but not quite!)

In the end, he did not
Climb into the creaky basket, brown
And tempting as chocolate,
Or blow to bursting the sour metal bubble that would bob
In a slapdash dance away from the whispered growls in the kitchen
Where monsters stayed awake plotting
All night long…

He did not rise above the stale gingerbread houses
Scattered like forgotten crumbs between the mountains
And the valleys. He did not drink
The bright blue wind in with thirsty lungs,
Or laugh in cahoots with the conspiratorial stars.
He did not even turn to glance
At the ocean puddles in the corner of the parking lot,
Their ecosystems of tire-squashed worms,
Cigarette butts and bottle caps.

He kept his feet on the ground. When the long blades thrummed
Through the clouds; when a thousand suns exploded
And drove the monsters from their dark hiding places
He did not break their unspoken laws.

But if he had fled, bled
Into the night sky with the birds and the bats,
They would have welcomed him, the others,
Those dying young adventurers who are
So lost to the world, but who find
What remains to be found.