you caught a pixie designed her cage made her think she was free built her a home out of bottled rage for all the things she was that you wanted so badly to be— a reader, a writer, a thinker a poet… Manically dreaming of a different you. One free The other tied to a ring, to a pump, to a stump You set around a candle You light as the fire Under the glass You look into When you smile What do you see? Were the years worthwhile? All those times you thought, fly fly fly do. something. Tapping on the glass, Waving through a window. I cried during that show. Not because of the child, In spite of— always in spite of, a sprite; You caught a pixie. And you thought pixels could capture A whole world’s disaster waiting to happen while Destruction struck our castle. The citadel on fire Like the candle she sat around As we rolled our mythic thread And raced fast out of town. You caught a pixie. It’s funny, how, for so long… She thought she’d caught you, but she was wrong.