Henry the Skellington

 

Henry the Skellington was on the edge

Of an awkward conversation

With the boy from whose imagination 

His mad, luminous, bony limbs

Had sprung forth

He said to the boy, “We need to talk,”

His massive cartoon teeth clack clack clack

Together as he spoke

He said, “I’m sorry, 

But I really need to get back.

Back into the inside of your brain.

I don’t belong here in the real world.”

But the boy acted like he hadn’t heard

He just laughed at the funny skellington

That danced and dangled in the light of his 

Dinosaur shaped bedroom lamp

It was great to have a skellington

And the boy wanted it to carry on

Henry tried to frown but

Without lips it was a hopeless case

He just looked delirious with glee

Within his xylophone ribcage he felt a pang

In the gap where his heart might be

“I know you’re having fun,” said Henry

Trying, again, to make an impression

“But I’m not really sure I can maintain cohesion

Here among your mortal kind

I’m a skellington

I’m made of thoughts

I need something real to bind

My bony self together

But the boy thought, “This will last forever!

I’ve got a skellington to call my own!

He’ll come to school with me and be my friend

And no-one will be mean to me again.”

And Henry tried his best, he did,

He didn’t want to disappoint this wide eyed joyful kid

But a skellington can’t hold a dream

In it’s smooth porcelain fingers

And mad poetic thoughts rarely live beyond

The beautiful moment of their conception

And so, one evening

Henry left forever

And the boy cried

And cried

And cried

And if that makes you sad, too, 

I think I know why

We try to look like grown ups

But we’re children more than half the time

We hold our joy in fragile hands

And we’ve all got a skellington

Inside