Pure ~ A Collection of Poetry

Fairytale

Once upon a time, I was

a little blonde girl who wanted to grow up and be a

triceratops. I announced my ambition to my parents,

wearing a pink tutu and

half-on ballet slippers that held my feet, gentle as

if they were glass ornaments.

They laughed, but their smiles were supportive.

I got a dinosaur encyclopedia

for Christmas. None of the gory pictures

stopped me.

Once upon a time, I was a 12-year-old.

I was determined to shut down and

I refused to listen to my own silent tears

because why have a heart that can only be broken?

I got fed up with being

unnoticed and I felt so

alone

that I hide behind fake smiles

as I fantasized about brutality.

Once upon a time, I was in high school,

clinging to every moment as it rushed past;

my pulse was a chorus of voices, singing my own

approaching maturity. (Time didn't care, she ripped away

from me and took my fingernails as souviners).

I stood before my classmates,

all fire and ice and trembling nerves and said

I want to be an author

and a hush fell over the room. A pale-haired boy asked what I'd do

when I was broke and another

washed-out dreamer. I told him I'd work with books in the library but

what I really meant was that I'd be a triceratops.

(I don't know what to do with broken dreams.)

Once upon a time, I was myself, pale and vulnerable and

so flawed by still trying to remember what strength feels like.

I stood before my father and announced

I was going to apply for creative writing boarding school and

he asked whether I had a back-up plan

for when I didn't get in.

I crumbled into sand, but that's okay, because

all sand needs to be glass is a little heat. And even if

the sun didn't scorch away the shame that flooded me, I could at least be

the sand beneath a dinosaur's foot, cradling such fragile life

and leaving proof of the impossible.

Once upon a time, I sat writing a poem

that had no purpose

or end. I was a novelist and a poet and a girl

who dreamed up galaxies while her peers

were still struggling with planets.

Once upon a time, I stopped hearing

What will you do when you fail? and started hearing

Prove me wrong.

Once upon a time, I got strong enough

to shed my skin; I was as strong as

any dinosaur.

Once upon a time, I stopped being sand

or glass. I became

a supernova.

(or maybe

it was all just a dream

anyway.)