Stepford Fairy Tale

image from google


The prompt over at dVerse is to 
write a poem based on a fairy tale. 
Given I lived the tale, I didn't have far to look.


She was raised on fairy tales:
beautiful princesses, handsome princes,
ivory towers, white horses, 
bad witch spells overturned by heroic knights,
Technicolor dreams so beautiful,
we rushed to plunge right in.


Steeped in romantic notions,
she fared forth innocent and round-eyed,
wheat for the sickle,
corn  for the scythe.


The wolves sat up and took note.


She didn't know she could choose,
so one chose her,
built her a house of sticks
too fragile to withstand,
too sharp to provide comfort,
too small to  accommodate
her big unwieldy spirit.
He battered her with words and demands,
"my needs, my wants, what's wrong with you?"
Not the words of the fairy tale prince.
She must then be the ugly step-sister, 
the one who didn't fit the glass slipper.
She was not the true princess.


She tried to fit that shoe on
with all her might,
until it shattered
and finally sprang her free.


Out of the box of sticks 
and into her life she tumbled,
clutching her babies,
and that first glorious morning 
of  freedom
she hippety-hopped downhill, 
pushing the baby buggy,
laughing and giggling 
with her bouncing, rollicking  babies
into a brand new life.