These children think they are broken.
They live inside a mossy garden inhabited by flowers that shape shift into people and gemstone mirrors reflecting only illusions.
The children are hybrids of fantasy and materialism,
They look like elves, like velvet-skinned fauns, like faeries who’ve lost their wings.
Their bones may be enveloped with the gossamer of dreams,
but their hearts belong in the muddy soil of raw reality.
Creating ritualistic fires of blue flames,
they turn the flesh of their demons into moon dust ashes
which they devour in order to become the thing that they most fear.
They annihilate their pain by eating evil with a silver spoon.
Fragility is a loaded gun.
Inside the body of every innocent, lurks a tiger,
lying in wait for the day it shall arise,
and turn snow into fire.
With smiles that look far more like snarls,
The children transfigure all they see.
Shona Christie is a 21-year-old college student majoring in philosophy. She spends her time dancing in the woods to classic rock as well as reading and writing on rooftops. More of Shona’s poetry can be found on her Tumblr: intothe-labyrinth.tumblr.com.