A Peter Pan Nightmare

Growing up is time fast in retrospect
Suddenly you were just a child yesterday
Now you’re old, old, old.

Listening to the ambient chime of cynic
Booms through grandfather clock
nostalgia–

When the full jasmine bloom is finally felt,
you decline and shrivel in the sun

left to an eternity of growing drier in the ground
while reminiscing of those gilded days in dark.

By Kailey Tedesco

Biography:

Kailey Tedesco is currently earning her MFA in poetry at Arcadia University. She is a former resident poet and current poetry editor for Lehigh Valley Vanguard. She also edits for Marathon Literary Review. Her work focuses on perceptions of femininity, often in a surrealistic manner. Many of her poems are inspired by confessional or Gurlesque poetics paired with her own experiences in cemeteries and abandoned amusement parks. You can find her poems featured in such publications asFLAPPERHOUSE and Jersey Devil Press. For more about Kailey Tedesco, please follow her on Twitter: @kaileytedesco.