strina: stock icon of cherries against a green background - default icon (river - doesn't always {duckytears})
strina ([personal profile] strina) wrote2006-03-24 04:50 pm
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Repost: Not So Happily Ever Afters

(Basically just backing these up. May or may not add new ones. Because, dammit, I always wanted to do one for Donkeyskin, but how on earth could you make that story any more fucked up?)

So. Couple years ago, wrote this whole series of poems based on fairy tales. The real fairy tales, not the happy Disney versions. Because I went through a whole phase at one point, these aren't all particularly well-known stories. If you don't remember the original tale, I will be happy to share it.

Oh, and these? Big with the drama. And the issues.


Snow

Everyone
Thinks I’m foolish
It’s part of the attraction
Isn’t it?
After all
If I had been less trusting
I wouldn’t have needed to be rescued
No one likes to think
That I might have known
To beware the gifts of a crone
That I might have eaten the apple
Merely to taste the poison




Jumper

Do you think
I didn't know what would happen,
Didn't know I would lose him
And die because of it?
Does it make it more tragic
To think I risked all for love
And lost?
I didn't
Not the way you think
I grew legs
Not for him
But for myself
I didn't love him
I loved the land
The earth
She is what I lost




Narcoleptic

Curiosity killed the cat
And me as well
That was always my besetting sin
Curiosity
And the greatest mystery in the kingdom
Was why the king banished all the spindles
They should have seen it coming
Always telling me to avoid the things
And never telling me why
I grew curiouser and curiouser
Until nothing would do but I find one
And find out for myself
I don't regret it
The satisfaction it brought...
If it meant I would sleep forever
I would still prick my finger




Stepsister

No one seems to realize
That I loved the prince
More than she ever did
Ever could
For no one
Would she mar her beauty
But for him
I crippled myself
And still
He tossed me aside
For her
With whom he danced but once
He danced with me
With all of us
And yet
He chose her
Chose her
Not for her beauty
For many
Were the beauties there that night
But for her willingness
To be abused




Gepetto's Son

I'm a real boy
Look
If you cut me
I bleed
That's how you know
That's how I know
I'm alive
Wood
Feels no pain
I
Feel pain
Pain
Means I'm a real boy




Mute

He kidnapped me
But everyone ignores that part
Don't they?
He asked me to the castle
And decided that a silent no
Didn't count
I hated that castle
All the stares
The glares
The whispers of "witch"
That only grew louder
After he married me
Married me without my consent
But that's another thing
No one talks about
I certainly couldn't
Sometimes
I wished I was a witch
So I could spell myself
Back to the forest
Back to the green silence I loved




Beauty

Once beast
Now prince
I lifted the curse
Thing is,
No one asked me
If I wanted it lifted
If I wanted the prince
That arrogant, spoiled prince
Back
No one asked
If I preferred the beast
That kind, gentle beast
My not-beast in disguise
To that beast in man's guise




Red

The perfect innocent
That's me
Too naive
To suspect the wolf
Of anything
Don’t kid yourselves
Didn’t my mother tell me
To beware of wolves,
Stay on the path?
I chose to leave the path
To talk to strangers
Did you really think
I didn’t know
Actions have consequences?
My mother told me
But
I’ve always had a thing for wolves




Captive

Bondage
I've never seen the appeal
Perhaps that's because
I've always been bound
Witch's tower, prince's castle
Both are prisons
Of supposed love
Did you know
My hair has grown long
Once more?
My glory, they call it
I call it a leash
You've heard, I'm sure,
Of the healing tears
I wept on seeing the prince
Blinded in the wilderness
Those were for me
For my new bondage




Sister

You all think I pushed her
I know
Amazing
Isn't it?
How the dead
Are suddenly perfect
Without sin
It's forgotten
How she stole my every suitor
Because she loved being the focus of attention
Approving, censorious, or shocked
It didn't matter
How she lied
For any reason
Or no reason at all
How she hated me
Hated me enough
To jump




Proud Titania

Always
I am the wicked one
At least in your eyes
You see me
As cold
Unfeeling
Selfish
You cannot understand
You mortals
The ways of the ever-young
We cannot feel as you do
Cannot sustain that intensity
And not burn out
But that does not mean
I did not love him
My pretty mortal knight
As much as that human strumpet
I loved him
Wished him to live always young
Always at my side
Yet somehow
In your eyes
This makes me wicked
Cold
Selfish




Stand

Eat
She would tell me
Grow plump and tender
Eat some more
She would coax
No
I will not eat
I will not grow plump
I will not obey
I cannot stop you
From caging me
But this
I can control
My body
Is mine
And I will control it
No
I will not eat
You will not win




Nosy

I know
You all want to tell me
I should have minded
My own business
Not opened that room
Uncovered his secret
But
He talked in his sleep
So it was no surprise
What waited behind that door
I just wanted to see
Where I'd be ending up
Because
If it hadn't been that
It would have been something else
The outcome
Was inevitable




Handless

Devil made you do it
Isn't that right, Daddy?
Devil made you do it
That's all you would say
When you took the axe and.
Well
We both know what you did
Crippled me
Sold me
Turned me out
The same thing happened again
My husband
Turned me out
Me and my babe
Devil made him do it, too
It's always the devil, isn't it?
Never your fault
Oh no
Good men
Don't do bad things
Unless the devil tricks them