
The Erlkönig arrived
In the carriage one night
Adelaide, a door found
She was replaced underground
The Pevensie Four also fell
Through a door
And when they grew up
They could go there no more
She sang the Erlkönig
All four operatic parts
Having mastered her craft
Of the vocular arts
Frightened child
Father unaware
Omniscient alto
Of the distant narrator
A seductive voice
Orchestrates everything
To the twisted mechanations
Of the Faerie King
It was inescapable it seems
That, as innocent children
We were replaced by changelings
Our parents never noticed
As for how sullen we became
They blamed it on our hormones
And the constancy of change
Cloaked us all imposters
A gremlin where I used to be
Sat loathsome in my room
Cramming composition books full of poetry
In adolescent clouds of gloom
Tragedy brings out the Poe in me
I have always had a Tell-Tale Heart
And I think, it has been nice knowing me
As my seams start to fall apart
Pills were given to adjust my brain chemistry
To bring good old Jekyll back from the Hyde
My emotions surely made a monster of me
Sporting feted wounds on the inside
Obsessive scrawling in the gutters
Of utterly destroyed notebooks filled
With no space left between the lines
The overfilled state of my poetry books
Matching the overwrought state of my mind
Now I am being congratulated
And I look sideways in the mirror
What I’ve written in flights of insanity
It must now face a jury of peers
Will they somehow find out
That the real me was lost
In a Sunken Place?
Was stolen away by the Erlkönig
And a changeling
Now wears my face