Prologue

The poem goes, grow down, grow down, because growing up sucks.

The poem goes, grow down, grow down, because you have so much more freedom. To be whoever the hell you want. To live outside of people’s expectations. To have fun. To explore. To breathe.

The poem goes, grow down, grow down, because life becomes so much more enjoyable if you can shirk all your responsibilities, if you never have to wear that serious face all the time, if you don’t have adult things to worry about.

Grow down, grow down, so you’re not that much closer to death.

But this ain’t no Shel Silverstein poem. 

This is the forest, where the grown-downs have got you by your legs, and you’ve got your belly to the earth and the branches are tearing at your clothes and your screams have got no one to hear them / no listeners.

This is the woods, where those who have been stolen before you hang upside down by their limbs. Where the darkness runs rampant and encroaches around you. Where the masks come off and something always lurks around the corner.

This is what you have gotten yourself into, by being so willing to listen to strangers in vans with candy, by being so naive that she actually wanted to be your friend, by not listening to your gut because your ‘friends’ said you were safe.

This is what you get.

And you have no one else to blame but yourself.