A STAIRCASE IN THE WOODS

 

Rip Van Winkle still sleeps out in the woods

not everyone develops an aversion to trauma

or Patty Hearst would have a different story

 

nowadays folks just think he’s on something

another lonely soul wandering until their death of despair

no hand reaching out to pull anyone back from the Other Side

 

“he ate faerie food himself,” they cluck with false sympathy

“tis a terrible fate it’s true, but still, twas not I who bade him wander

in the deep dark woods so late and all alone”

 

we can change the story a thousand times

palette-swap your villains to sell sensationalized habits

blame the pain to disregard the warning

 

they’ll say “folks know better in this part of town”

as he staggers by, haggard with a clean new bottle

back into the dark forest to search for another way

 

hoping he’ll find a staircase from nowhere to nowhere

standing alone in a dappled green clearing

so he can climb up into another dimension

and finally come unstuck