Pixies.

Once, not too long ago,
I met a boy with faded purple hair and a far off smile.
He said he danced with pixies in the morning light
As dew fell like raindrops from the leaves of their substitute trees.
Everyone thought he was mad,
That things had taken control of his mind and body
When he re-enacted his adventures in the grass blades with the magic
That we mortals could not see.
Everybody, but me,
I believed him,
I believed as his own faith waned and he doubted his stories
Whilst the public exploited him in the media.

So I took his hand one dusk and ran with him to his memories,
Through the night, through the star swept span of the sky,
Until dawn rose and broke through a small opening in the dense forest
We’d come to find ourselves in.
He showed me what it was to see things others couldn’t.
At least, he tried.
I did not see the sparkling dust,
Nor the pixies,
Nor the magic,
But I did see the hope.
I saw the hope in his eyes as he clutched at his mud splattered calves
And willed himself to shrink and play with the imaginary beings.

My palpitating heartbeats could be heard for miles around
As little by little I saw him destroy his own sanity.
I’d turned my back in embarrassment,
Raised my eyes to the clouded heavens and prayed.
When I turned back he was gone.
Nothing left.
I like to believe he really is with his friends now,
His real friends who dance with him in the bark of tree trunks.
Though I know that it’s unlikely, after all,
I’d given him the perfect opportunity to escape.

No one saw the violet headed boy again.
Except for me, in my dreams he haunts me
He takes me to nooks in earthy bracken, to play.
And, during the day, when I am wide awake,
I pay my dues to society in a state penitentiary
For the murder of the ghostly friend
Whom I see every night.