Down the yellow road they walked,
Arm-in-arm and side-by-side,
The girl who could never go home,
The scarecrow whose mind would never roam,
The lion who was always afraid and never brave,
The tin man who could never comprehend what it is to cry.

Through the daisies they skipped,
The taste of hope on their chapped lips,
Through the daisies they sang
Songs of hope and songs of pain.
The burning desire of the sun
As it sighed, waiting for its long summer day to be done.

Mountains of emeralds lay ahead,
Glistening peaks of viridian.
So close yet so far from the newborn friends.
It seemed their path would never reach its end
As legs of bone, straw, and metal began to fold,
Collapsing under the tired and desperate bodies they hold.

The haunting ghost of a twisted green face
Lingered in their basket-case minds.
The shadowing threat of the high-pitched cackle
And the weights of thirst tug on their sunburnt backs.
A thirst for the coolness of bliss,
a craving for the ecstasy and all of its nutrients.

The girl continued on, red slippers tapping against yellow brick,
But her companions stopped, staying behind.
She continued on, oblivious, muttering,
“There’s no place like home, no place like home.”
Her optimistic thoughts continued their angelic fluttering,
The feathers of cherubim, the powder of a butterfly's wing. 

Behind her back they conspired, their words floating around
Her young ears deaf to their mischievous sound.
It was not the scarecrow’s plan since he did not have a brain,
Nor was it the idea of the lion; he was simply too afraid
It was the plot of the tinman, who never had understood pain,
With no pounding in his chest, and vacancy in his oil black soul.

He told his audience that there was no sorcery,
No wizard, that could fix their deformed lives.
“We’re all broken, clocks that don’t tick,
We’ve walked for days, searching for magic that doesn’t exist.”
It was as he spoke these words that his head tilted,
Looking at the young girl with her blue and white skirt drifting in the breeze.

The girl was not broken,
A puzzle with all of the pieces.
She was brave enough to face the witch,
Smart enough to find her way to the city,
Compassionate enough to bring them all on her journey.
She had a plethora of heart, brains, and valor, certainly enough to share.

On the tips of their toes, they crept up behind her,
Like mice pittering and pattering, looking for just a morsel.
They used their bodies like metal bars on a cage,
Locking the young girl in place.
She looked up at them, eyes hopping from face to face.

She opened her mouth to speak,
But only one single syllable escaped her small lips, soft and sweet.
Her last words never uttered as she fell to the ground.
The feeling of claws under her skin,
Her skull being bashed in by tin.
The last thing she saw, was someone above her, stuffing her throat with straw.

Over the body, three murderers stood, breathing sharply.
With instruction from the hollow man, they each took their share--
A stomach of courage for the squeaking lion,
A brain of thought for the fumbling scarecrow,
A pounding and dripping heart for the tinman.
They gave the mutilated remains one final glance
Before carrying out their immoral plan.
The overgrown cat used the hooks of his hand
To create a hole for his new organ of bravery.
The man of straw begin to pull strands
Out of his head in order to insert his new mind.

Blood coated the lion’s fur as it began to soak through.
He cried out in pain, dying with a whimper, not the roar he had hoped for.
The scarecrow stood with a pile of straw at his feet, but not a strand on his head.
He rushed to clean up the mess he had created, but it wasn’t long before
The birds above mistook the exposed flesh for food,
Swooping down and fighting over the pink goop.

Three bodies at his feet, the tin man remained.
“If only I had a heart,” he had once sang,
But as he looked down at his three fallen friends,
He fell to his knees, hearing them creak,
Yelling in protest as they punched the brick beneath.

As he felt the pounding in his silver chest,
Thumping, thumping, thumping
He felt something else he couldn’t explain--
A tiny droplet of water rushed out of his eye
And down his glistening face,
Rusting his once shining skin.

He lifted a cold finger to his cheek,
Tracing the small river as it continued to flow, continued to grow,
Decaying his immortal skin.
He didn’t know what to call it, or how to describe it--
This pang within him as he looked down at each carcass.

He wept for them, his body shaking back and forth,
Swaying in the wind, like the girl’s dress had once done,
Like the coat of the lion, and the straw of the scarecrow,
But now they were all gone,
And he was to blame.

Eventually, he sat in a puddle of his own tears.
He not only cried for his dead friends,
But for the feelings he had avoided for years.
The more he cried, the more the rust spread,
Until there were not three, but four who lay dead.
The yellow brick road now painted red.