One Minute Past Midnight

I'm feeling a certain disenchantment.

The kind that takes place at 12:01 am.

I'm feeling more pumpkin than a princess.

I once traded my voice for a pair of legs

During a bet with a sea witch

Who was just as much of a

victim of the system.

Why else would she seek my voice?

I once took a bite of a poisoned apple

From a stranger who offered it so kindly

I forgave her- cause it was the

masculine mirror,

telling her women don't age well.

So, I'm grateful that i pricked my finger

On the needle of a spinning wheel

On my sixteenth birthday

So I could stay forever young

Cryogenically frozen.

Nothing Like Kipling's "If"

If Cinderella's feet were not petite.

If Rapunzel's hair was short and trimmed.

If Ariel's fishtail did not split or spread.

If Snow White's skin was not like the purer looking snow

(a little muddied or yellow?!)

If Aurora drooled or snored in her hundred-year sleep.

If beneath Belle's beauty, there was a beast.

Or if,

He was not her first beast.

Unhooding Red

Swallow me whole

Big Bad Wolf

So the hunter can come

To my rescue

You had to devour me

Big Bad Wolf

How else would we eternally glorify the hunter?

Its cozy in here

Big Bad Wolf

I can make it homey

Right here in your tummy

It's what I am trained to do

It's what my mother,

And my mother's mother

Have been trained to do

Don't believe me?

Ask her yourself

You've swallowed her too.