“The jealous fairy had now cast off all disguise of friendship, and was darting at her victim from every direction, pinching savagely each time she touched.” – Peter Pan and Wendy, J.M. Barrie

Now that you’re gone, I think of you often.

I wish I’d taught you how to hem
Your beautiful, old-fashioned dresses
And pull honied nectar
Through your hair to curl it,
As the mermaids do.

I wish I’d let you alight on my soft, untested 
Hands and asked you to tell me 
Stories of Neverland before
Pirates and children took it.

I wish I’d told you not to mother
A pack of boys no younger or more lost than you —
Washing clothes, soothing fears,
You played house earnestly
Until it wasn’t play.

I wish I’d begged you never to
Drink down poison to make the cruelest boy 
See you, want you, love you,
Choose you,
Remember your name.

Maybe we could have shared
Secrets, scraps of silk,
The shifting skies of Neverland
And dark, uncharted seas.

Did you know, suspect, 
I taught Peter how to fly?
I could show you how to soar
Without his bag of dust,
Without him.

Did you know, ever guess,
I taught Peter how to love?
I could offer friendship 
Free of thimbles, arrogance,
Or forgetting.

Begin again with me?
In an hour, in a moment,
This very moment,
Neverland is expanding, ours,
A universe of salt and stars.
How many years has it been?

Would I still find you
In the house with the balcony,
Gray shimmers in your hair?

Would you still tap on my window,
Soft as a breeze shifting a branch,
A light, a bell, a needle?

Clap your hands,

I will hear you.

[Dr. Sara Cleto and Dr. Brittany Warman are award-winning folklorists, teachers, and writers. Together, they founded The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic, teaching creative souls how to re-enchant their lives through folklore and fairy tales. Their fiction and poetry can be found in Enchanted Living, Uncanny Magazine, Apex Magazine, Fairy Tale Review, Star*Line, and others.]