Some poetry demans a stage, the actor’s exiting and reappearing to shed light upon the story, Once more with feeling as Buffy the Vampire would say.
Today’s NaPoWriMo challenge pulled inspiration from dramatic, rhymed narrative poems like The Best Loved Poems of the American People, the swashbuckling energy of The Pirate, and the haunting rhythm of The Highwayman. These are poems that don’t whisper—they perform. They carry plot, tension, and emotion like an opera swelling toward its breaking point.
So I leaned into that.
This piece became something theatrical—something suspended between memory and myth. A man, worn by time, discovers Neverland is real… but the real conflict isn’t the journey there. It’s the cost of staying.
Because what happens when you actually get back the thing you’ve been mourning your whole life?
About the Poem
Aria for the Boy I Buried is written as a kind of operatic progression—recitative, aria, chorus, duet—each section building tension as the speaker sheds age and moves closer to something he thought was lost forever.
At its core, this isn’t just about Peter Pan or Neverland.
Aria for the Boy I Buried
I. Recitative — The Discovery
I found it not in dream, nor drink, nor prayer,
But in the brittle hush of midnight air—
A map slipped loose from pages long ignored,
Its ink still wet, its edges faintly scorched.
It whispered Come, though none were standing near,
A voice both mine—and not—within my ear.
The years hung heavy, rust upon my bones,
A choir of clocks that chimed in hollow tones;
Yet something stirred beneath that ticking grave—
A reckless pulse, a boy I could not save.
II. Aria — The Crossing
Oh, Neverland!—you myth I mocked as child,
You fever-dream, untamed and running wild—
I followed starlight stitched in emerald thread,
Through skies that burned like secrets left unsaid.
The wind, it sang!—a siren’s sharp delight,
And tore the weight of decades from my sight.
My breath grew quick, my laughter rang too loud—
I shed my name like age, a brittle shroud.
III. Chorus — The Lost Boys
They came like echoes skipping over time,
Barefoot, bright-eyed, speaking half in rhyme:
“Another’s come! Another’s crossed the seam—
A man undone by memory and dream!”
Their faces flickered—mine among their own,
A younger ghost I never should have known.
They crowned me not with pity, nor with grace,
But mischief wild and ash upon my face.
IV. Duet — With Peter
Then he—
the boy who never bowed to years,
Whose shadow danced with all my buried fears.
“Why linger long,” he grinned, “in mortal skin,
When all you’ve lost is waiting here again?”
His voice—a blade of laughter, sharp and sweet,
Cut through the graveyard rhythm of my heartbeat.
I answered slow, though something in me broke:
“What price is youth?”
He smiled.
“You never spoke.”
V. Aria — The Transformation
The mirror cracked—I swear I heard it sing,
As time uncoiled its rusted, iron ring.
My hands grew light—no tremor, ache, nor scar,
My breath returned from someplace cold and far.
The lines that carved their sorrow in my face
Were swept away like footprints lost in lace.
And oh—
the terror of that fleeting grace!
For what is age, if not a map of pain?
And who am I, if I erase the stain?
VI. Finale — The Choice
The drums of Neverland began to roar—
A distant war, a beast upon the shore,
A tiger’s cry for no discernible cause,
A shadow stitched with ancient, broken laws.
“Stay,” Peter urged, “and lose what you have been.
Or leave—and bear the weight of should have been.”
The stage stood still. The chorus held its breath.
For youth, I learned, is just a kinder death.
And I—
mid-note between the man and boy—
Felt time itself recoil…
Then shatter into joy.