I Want

I want to be an Egyptian priest,
or a gnome,
or a toy maker.
I want to guess the name of Rumpelstiltskin.
I want to stand stripped naked
of the dapper decorum and protocols
I dressed myself in too young to know their cost.

I want to believe the truth I found
alone in the woods
driving a stake into the ground
and speaking to a dormant god
in a private tongue.
I want to hear the snake speak,
and press against the warm heartbeat of a squirrel.
I want the wonder of Christmas morning with
notes to Santa, and half-eaten cookies,
and reindeer tracks in the snow.

I want to hear music through the walls
of the womb,
and read poetry with newborn eyes
unfamiliar with rhyme scheme and scansion.
I want to love without knowing
the Pythagorean egg
hatching consequence and time,
punch-drunk and flinching when touched.

I want to hear my voice
whispering in a preteen room
telling tales of blank spaces
and unknown lands.
I want a faerie to trap truth in my doorway
and a ghost to haunt my halls.
With age,
I have unbecome myself.
I want to remember who I was
before I became who I am.

I can't write without a teacher's pen
forcing my words off the page.
I burned a book of my poems in the woods one day
when I felt them advancing on my thoughts,
but the Pyrrhic victory only shamed me.
Barricaded behind wordless lines,
and redacted faith,
and truth censored into attrition.