Pretend I'm Screaming This

Fairytale Woman

I always loved fairy tales.

My mother would read them to me from her own book of stories as she dimmed the lights to help me sleep.

And my favourite was always about a dove that was actually a prince,

And his servants and friends had been bound into the trees that made up the forest he flew through.

I always preferred reading in bean bags to finger painting

And writing stories to hide and seek.

I spent my childhood twirling in green forests with hidden castles and sleeping dragons,

If I closed my eyes I swear I could feel the moss between my toes.

But there was always an evil queen,

Or an untrustworthy servant to the king,

And the princes saved the princesses and the princes saved the princesses.

Why did the prince always save the princesses as if they couldn't save themselves?

I watched as girls became drugged on the idea they had to have a man to rescue them and boys learn to take advantage of it.

Boys that would throw the ladder to you and wait until after thank you sex before pushing you back in the pit.

I watched as you took her hand, and pulled her from the mud, and gave her a change of clothes just so you could see her take her top off.

You held her close just to feel her breasts, but she believed you were her prince charming.

Your testosterone seeped into her pores like cyanide as you slowly whispered sweet nothings in her ear until her skin was scarred with your entity

And you decided you liked unscathed pigments and smooth arms instead.

And you looked around for your next victim

And your eyes found me but let me tell you,

You can not hurt me.

I will not let you push me to my knees,

I will throw you down the rabbit hole.

Because I don't believe in love and that's what you rely on

And ripping the edge from your knife causes you more pain than what you put any of those girls through.

Don't look at me like you can burn your name in between my shoulder blades.

Flames can not feel pain and I am a forest fire waiting to throw a spark into the tree trunks of your veins and watch it ignite like gasoline.

My lips only know how to form rejection because I grew up on the breast milk of a single mother who taught me

That I never needed a man to put up some bookshelves.

That I never needed a man to light my cigarette for me.

That I never needed a man to love me

Because fingertips bloom orchids and my bones are made from rose beds.

I am most beautiful when I am sleeping

In my own tangled sheets

That I do not have to share

To make me feel worth something.