I wish I’d had the kind of childhood in which
finding out Santa wasn’t real and that my parents were the tooth fairy
were the biggest lies I ever heard,
& in which happily ever after never turned into
such a disaster
but simply faded into modernity & bland happiness.
I wish I’d never read a love story,
or seen my father through a glass wall with high ceilings
on the inside & the out.
I wish I’d never had cause to wonder if you smile the same at her
as you do at me,
and I wish that I could feel like I’ve ever deserved security.
I wish I’d done something, anything to deserve
the lies you’ve fed me.
I wish I’d never felt like the world’s worst mock-up,
a draft, unfinished,
drowning in the backwash of my own empty cup.
I wish I’d never, ever, ever,
never ever
grown up.