An Undiscovered Place

All children are soldiers
who must turn their faces to the wind.
When they collide with adults
they either scale the walls of the fort
or retreat into the shadows
to become a vase or a sofa or a chair.

Most adults are orphans
who live with strangers
who don’t notice that they are chairs.

When chairs dream,
they dream of being soldiers again.
They dream of a wonderland of bombs
that explode like flowers.
They dream of gigantic insects
fighting each other to the death.
They dream in octagons
and beams of light
and drum beats.

All parents are the murderers
of their children’s dreams.
But some children dream
of an undiscovered place.
It’s as if a hole had ripped open
in the sky.
The children fly through the hole,
into the dark air,
where they become the rulers of their world,
unseen by adults.

All adults are children.
All children are soldiers.
All soldiers are murderers.
All murderers are dreamers.

Wendy Rainey‘s poetry and short stories have been featured in Nerve Cowboy, Misfit Magazine, Bold Monkey, Chiron Review, and beyond. She studied poetry with Jack Grapes in Los Angeles, and creative writing with Gerald Locklin at California State University, Long Beach.