Renegades

I used to wear this plastic crown as a child,
playing make believe.
I had no idea that fate is a mystery,
love ends, and I used to think that if
I squished my eyes shut just hard enough,
I would sprout wings and fly off the edge of the earth.

But time hardens all of us, doesn’t it?
In little ways, it chips away at the corners of our flesh,
makes waves in our bone marrow.
We can’t let time cage us.
We must sing our songs and tell our stories before
they become dust on shelves that even the sun forgets about.
We must break the rules and find fools’ gold
on withered treasure maps.
Let us string wisps of mayhem until the sky breaks dawn,
chaotic love and unchained melodies,
to infinity and beyond.