“Stupid boy!”


I rage at the cerulean sky,




shaking my mangled fist at




the empty expanse of blue above me.


My eyes slide to the cobalt depths,




in which a horrible beast scared me




into a white fear that swallowed me whole.


I hate him with a fire that cannot be stamped out,




or watered down by a cool rain.


He will pay for what he has done to me,




what causes me such pain every time I reach up




to touch my chin, or straighten my hat.
“He'll crow. He'll fight. And then...he'll die.”


The words I swore on the day he took my hand,




I swear again as I harangue toward the silver clouds




that I feel will, so soon, open up themselves and allow




my long-nines to clear a wide hole in his prideful chest.


A whistle sounds under a foot of deck timber.




What idiot has broken my menacing reverie?




Men begin shouting around me, squawking like the




birds that lazily float around the ship, pointing up at the




sky with grubby fingers, at a slim silhouette, gliding round




the main mast and rigging.
“Take him down! Shoot him!”



I scream at the soaring shape, trying to bring it down with the sound of my voice.
I shake my mangled fist at him and yell
“I'll get you Peter Pan, if it’s the last thing I do!”