Shadow Boy 4:13

The clock stopped somewhere over the second star
I traded maps for memories and forgot how far
The harbor lights keep blinking but the ships don’t come
I’m counting constellations that have all gone numb
The boy who drew the coastlines never learned to read them
The boy who found the door forgot he’d need to leave them

Wendy said to let it go
The tide said the same
But tides don’t know what gets left behind
When you learn your own name

I am the boy who wouldn’t
The window left unlocked
The shadow sewn back crooked
The hand that stopped the clock

The pirates grew up too, I heard
Traded cutlasses for clocks
Now they’re punctual and hollow
Haunting nine-to-five docks
I passed them on the freeway in their sensible sedans
Eyes forward, mirrors covered, former also-rans
They don’t look back, they told me once
That’s how you finally win
But every rearview mirror is a door I’ve looked back in

Wendy said to let it go
The tide said the same
But tides don’t know what gets left behind
When you learn your own name

I am the boy who wouldn’t
The window left unlocked
The shadow sewn back crooked
The hand that stopped the clock

Neverland was never land
It was just the space between
Who you were when no one watched
And who you’ve learned to seem
And the crocodile keeps ticking
In the hollow of my chest
Not a warning, not a sentence —
Just the sound of what’s compressed

I am the boy who wouldn’t
The window left unlocked
The shadow sewn back crooked
The hand that stopped the clock

The shadow finds me every dusk
Stretched long across the floor
I don’t sew it back anymore
I don’t sew it back anymore
I just let it reach the door