History Lesson

I am from brambles tearing at my legs
as I run from sorcerers, demons, and wolves
that shed their flashing, red eyes
and shift back into oaks and pines
when it's time for me to go back inside.
Dead leaves laugh under my shoes
as I climb the staircase to the witch's tower,
which my mom says is only a large gray rock.
"Have you finished your homework yet?" she says now.
I put the rough lines of a craggy wizard's face
away in my sketchbook and under my bed,
which is still a place where monsters lie,
and take out my history pages before she opens the door.
"Almost done."
The world, encompassed in that one forest
behind my champagne-colored house,
was a lot more interesting than the Triangle Shirtwaist fire.

__________________
"They think I'm crazy, but I know better. It is not I who am crazy... it is I who am MAD!"