Explosion: Implosion

This post is somewhat different now that Tim has compiled all the explosions into one. I basically took the explosions from my original poem and then stole lines from all of them, thereby imploding the explosion. I have no idea how you would format THAT. Feel free to re-explode it, or just think of it as another experiment in writing.

RUN

Run
As far and as fast as you can towards treasure at rainbows ends or
Golden discord apples thrown through forest umber shadows, down rabbit holes
Where Alice lost and found and lost and found and dreamed acid looking glass dreams
Of smoke swirling up colliding with ceiling fans which fling strands wedding-rice-like
Not towards something, but away from this stagnant pool under lilies the water dies
Like echoes in canyons (poor Echo, I weep for her and she is ungrateful, returning
My tears mocking while the ghosts of lever leapt smile, thinking the stones
Have learned to cry)
Run
Fast and grab something, anything sharp to rend reality's fabric or
Take nothing but the shattered splattered sunlight in your cacophonous jungle hair
And the stubborn sand that stains the soles of your beach dancing bare feet in summer
Hopeful where the unknown beckons tripping skipping slipping you follow
Incongruous footprints trailing behind you like ants with green leaf sails drifting across
Dusty seas boats follow the ends of the earth (Sinking below the horizon
I almost remember when the world was a disc and beyond the harlot rouged waters.
There are dragons)
Run
Into fields of thunder and lightening naked to feel rain lashes on skin or
Stripped to nothing hoping electric amber sky light strikes and singes to illuminate
You like manuscripts where beasts make lovers of women and flowers woven
Into virginal bouquets thrown to the hopeful then tossed penitently into graves covered
By Adam's dust watered by river Lethe waters that glimmer gifts of souls ans
Coins from dead eyes (And I wonder if the payment for eternity has increased over time,
paired coins no longer promises enough and must we pay in gold ingots, or will
Voided checks suffice)
Run
Chastely passed through death and returned, transcending sin or
Never return at all stay lost weaving endlessly through warp and woof, spaces between
Crowds of strangers stare blankly reflecting time like mirrors in empty houses reflect
Dust spinning in moon light streams through fractured fractal windows curtains blowing
Sudden breezes sweep salt across abandoned floors like so many old receipts
Pasted in scrapbooks (carefully kept, but my lover deserted me anyways, leaving gentle
Paper trail traces of each movie concert play meal intertwined mementos, but
I don't remember)
Run
You can call me Eurydice shout it out or
Whisper the wind steals the words away
You won't look back
You promise
And I won't follow

Cages: Compiled

Now that we seem to have moved past our first experiment with a poetry explosion, I thought I would conclude it how I used to do it at my school -- to compile the poem in its entirety, noting where the additional poets added their words to the original.

---

Eyes shining you offer me a hand, lifting me through mire of my own making
Spirals inside rage self-righteous, you lead me to a white-washed wall
Draw a door

Draw a door.
Where does it lead?
Only as far as your mind can reach.
The unknown beckons.

Where does it lead?
Who can say, but if you lead the way
I'll follow after you
To depths not often known.

Who can say, but if you lead the way
Who knows what dreams may come?
A future open wide
Why do we open doors?

Let me turn the handle. Myself. Push through.

"You can be. Anyone. Do anything."
To prove your point, you built me a glass ceiling
Then shattered it, so I would be free
Laughing crystal slivers rain,

Laughing crystal slivers rain, crown me in glitter petal shards.
run fast and grab something, anything
sharp.
Quick, before I envelope such fractured light. In trying to heal, I poke and cut.
With eyes Magnified I cannot stop to find the problems as the crystalline seeds blossom
into seventeen perfect replicas of your left iris--Dark, and filled with swallowed possibilities.
Ferocious stranger of mine, dissolving into resonances,
and shimmering with offset oscillations,
you have left in me a piece of you.
But are you a hornet, or a bumble bee.
or a simply crafted wooden sculpture, being torn apart by termites.

crown me in glitter petal shards.
Distant and safe you watch.
I parody St. Sebastian,

I parody St. Sebastian,
climbing high among the boughs and limbs,
and hands of good people—
you whom I have known and changed
and loved, and brushed my fingers
past your faces that you may
know the stars again,
and speak to the ringing of halos
that flutter
past your once imprisoned eyes.

I dance through the veins of town,
las vías de las villas españolas,
I weave a ribbon through your windows
a mosaic of punctured names
scattered one by one across the catacombs;
I wave away Apollo's blackened hand,
and march with your sons
and daughters
into the fields of thunder and lighting.

And from these branches
through swollen slits of light
I watch
as archers lift up their bows,

As archers lift up their bows,
arrows do nothing:
The emperors club kills me.

pull taught their strings, and sing
the strains of violins, (each note
pierces with its graceful flight);

With every breath I know
the music is for me, and I
drip liquid rubies.

drip liquid rubies.

I gave you my heart, I suppose.

I gave you my heart, I suppose.
I did not know
You would want me to come and pick it up
When you were done with it.

I did not know
You would be so careless,
Leaving it here and there, dog-earing it,
Often forgetting you had it.

I had this shy notion
Of you keeping it safe and warm
Nestled close beneath the covers.

You grew tired of it;
You moved on.
You threw out the trash,
Almost tossed it away
Like so many old receipts.

Yet when I stood there in your room
Your back to me, your attention elsewhere:

I did not want it back.

It was more yours than mine.

You gave me wings, you said.
Sewed my butterfly chest together with

I've sewed my butterfly chest all together
with straps made entirely of soup-stewed shoe leather
butterfly patches and butterfly stitches
the scars are still burning, the rotten flesh itches

To creak my neck forward sends head-spinning pain
through cold coils of copper I've hooked in my brain
I look down my body through eyes dried and wired
and electrically flex muscles long since expired

One leg's from a dead man; one leg is a wheel.
I've a cranial disc made of thrice-folded steel.
I've no nose to speak of, but that's just as well,
since I'm made of cadavers I've no wish to smell.

A mortal no longer, I've shed my old skin
passed through death and returned, transcending my sins
the police, when they killed me, my spirit unfettered
and thus I return, all the stronger and better.

I lurch down the stairs, my sucking chest heaving
to wish all the village a... memorable evening.

Dark criss-crossed child crayons
"I have given you wings. Fly"
My breast, empty. My wings, fluttering, fettered.

No one hears a heart when it breaks.
In silence, a storm.

My Heart

Disclaimer - This poem draws from the last poem that I contributed, which in turn was taken from Karen's. However, it is removed enough that I gave it a new title, with lack of better category.

This is about my heart,
But not – NOT about Love,
Rather that fist-sized, spongy bag
That beats and beats me alive.
Tha-thump tha-thump.
 
It’s irregular, my heartbeat.
Sometimes it’s running along
And then it trips on its own feet-
All of a sudden, nothing:
Tha-thump, tha-…
 
This is a matter that conerns me
Why stop? Do you need a rest,
Oh driving beat that keeps me going?
Why stop? No lurch inside my chest
And then…
 
-thump
 
Not dead yet.
 
It makes me wonder:
How many beats must you miss
Before you are dead?
Two? Four? Six?
How do I know it will ever start again?
 
And what defines a “stopped” heart?
Hearts can’t just stop all on their own,
That’s bullcrap. One must have a part
In keeping it going.
One must not take it for granted.
 
Yet it's so easy to ignore.

John and Sara, Part 3

Tommy and Caitlin had long ago given up their attempts to “share” Flu as a family pet. Caitlin, the designated afternoon dog walker, found herself unable to coax the little mutt to use his legs. While Walnut, their German shepherd, would happily prance ahead of her, Flu would sit firmly on his haunches and allow himself to be dragged. As small as he was, this was not a difficult task, but the opposing directions of the leashes hurt Caitlin’s shoulders, and after two sessions she started leaving Flu at home. Though brief as Caitlin’s companionship with the miniature pet was, Tommy’s was shorter. Used to feeding Walnut from the dinner table, he was surprised by Flu’s ingratitude, and had to wear a band-aid on his fingers for three days. Tommy and Caitlin decided to leave Flu in Char’s care, and only acknowledged the dog as far as polite tolerance required.


Char, his parents noted, enjoyed having the dog all to himself. They spent their afternoons together in Char’s room or the backyard playhouse. Before school, Sara would check Char’s backpack to ensure he did not try to bring Flu to class again. Whenever Char sat--at meals, while watching television, reading in the living room--Flu was in his lap. John had noticed, as he tucked Char in one night, that Flu had taken to nestling himself inside the hollow of the boy’s detached leg prosthesis. It was turning into an unhealthy relationship, he and Sara agreed as they folded sheets. But the boy needed a friend, didn’t he?

John and Sara... Con't.

In fact, Char's only friend was Flu. "Flu" was short for Fluffykin, and Fluffykin was one of the family dogs. To be precise, he was the 0.3 of the family dogs. Like Char, the full name did not seem to fit him, and despite the family's best efforts to make it stick, the name had gradually shortened to Fluffy, and then finally Flu.

Flu was a mutt that the family had found in the park across the street from their house one night after dinner. They'd gone for a walk at 7:30pm after dinner had been eaten, the dishes had been washed, and the family was digesting. Beneath the bleachers surrounding the field that Caitlin played soccer on, a soft whimper had been sounding. After some coaxing, John had managed to reveal a bloody and limping puppy. John had quickly pulled off his sweater, wrapped the crippled canine in his cardigan, and the family had rushed to the vet's office.

Flu had come to live with the family after no owner could be found, and to this day, he had not grown to weigh over 5lbs. His miniature size was what designated him as 1/3 of a dog, but his attitude was far from miniscule. Char and Flu were seldom seen apart, and Flu was violently protective of the young lad.

John and Sara

John and Sara were about as average as they could get. They lived in a nice house with a small yard surrounded by a white picket fence. John worked as an accountant in the block of offices just off the interstate, and Sara always had dinner on the table by six P.M. They had 2.5 kids and 1.3 dogs, and were generally satisfied with life.

But it was hard to live up to the standards of the average, middle-class life style. John worked as the manager of a retail electronics business, though he was often putting in overtime hours to make sure he got enough money squared away every month. Sara was always a little bit frantic, making sure their kids got to school, got to sports practices, got to their doctors' appointments. It was a real challenge to get dinner ready on time every day, and that it was something that would satisfy everyone. They made the best of it of course, and they went to bed every night with a smile — albeit a strained one — knowing that they had done their duties as parents, and done them well. Still, it was hard.

A lot of it, they conceded one night, talking softly as they changed into their pajamas, stemmed from their children. As an average family of average means, it was difficult to raise their children. Quite frankly, they didn't know how other people did it. And it wasn't even their two oldest children, (they noted over the bathroom sink as they brushed and flossed their teeth), it was their "point five."

Tommy and Caitlin were great, actually. They got decent marks in school; they were well-liked on their respective baseball and soccer teams; they were responsible and polite, if not altogether clean and self-sufficient. No, it was their youngest, Char, who took up the vast majority of their parental efforts.

They paused, a momentary shadow of uncomfortable guilt passing over them both as they rinsed with Cool Mint mouthwash. His name, according to his birth certificate, was Charles, but he had insisted on being called "Char" since he was able to speak. His full name wasn't him, he said. It didn't fit his personality, his life. And so he cut it in half, so to speak, and refused to go by anything else. He was that kind of kid — stubborn and strong-willed.

It wasn't his fault, (they admitted as they kicked off their slippers and climbed into bed); there was nothing to be helped. He grew up in a world where he was supposed to be part of an average family, only he couldn't ever really live up to the expectations. He tried to join Tommy's baseball league, but with only one arm he couldn't wear a glove without making it impossible to throw. He tried to join Caitlin's soccer league, but with only one leg he couldn't keep up with the other children, let alone kick the ball without risking falling down and hurting himself. They had even tried a table tennis league, which required only one hand and limited movement, but with only one eye and the resulting depth-perception issues, he could never manage to get the ball over the net.

It was also a shock to John and Sara both, (they finally admitted as they set their separate alarm clocks on their separate night stands), when they learned that the average American family does not, in fact, have to deal with these issues. That all of the articles they had read talking about families having "two-point-five children" were describing the average number of children over a wide sample base, and that the average family had either two or three. Very few, if any, have half a child.

But despite all this, (they concluded, heads resting on their pillows, facing each other in the dark), they had done well as parents. Or at least, they had done the best that could be expected of them. And who could ask for more?

Cages VI

I've sewed my butterfly chest all together
with straps made entirely of soup-stewed shoe leather
butterfly patches and butterfly stitches
the scars are still burning, the rotten flesh itches

To creak my neck forward sends head-spinning pain
through cold coils of copper I've hooked in my brain
I look down my body through eyes dried and wired
and electrically flex muscles long since expired

One leg's from a dead man; one leg is a wheel.
I've a cranial disc made of thrice-folded steel.
I've no nose to speak of, but that's just as well,
since I'm made of cadavers I've no wish to smell.

A mortal no longer, I've shed my old skin
passed through death and returned, transcending my sins
the police, when they killed me, my spirit unfettered
and thus I return, all the stronger and better.

I lurch down the stairs, my sucking chest heaving
to wish all the village a... memorable evening.

Cages V

I gave you my heart, I suppose.
I did not know
You would want me to come and pick it up
When you were done with it.
 
I did not know
You would be so careless,
Leaving it here and there, dog-earing it,
Often forgetting you had it.
 
I had this shy notion
Of you keeping it safe and warm
Nestled close beneath the covers.
 
You grew tired of it;
You moved on.
You threw out the trash,
Almost tossed it away
Like so many old receipts.
 
Yet when I stood there in your room
Your back to me, your attention elsewhere:
 
I did not want it back.
 
It was more yours than mine.

Cages IV-II

As archers lift up their bows,
arrows do nothing:
The emperors club kills me.

Cages IV

I parody St. Sebastian,
climbing high among the boughs and limbs,
and hands of good people—
you whom I have known and changed
and loved, and brushed my fingers
past your faces that you may
know the stars again,
and speak to the ringing of halos
that flutter
past your once imprisoned eyes.

I dance through the veins of town,
las vías de las villas españolas,
I weave a ribbon through your windows
a mosaic of punctured names
scattered one by one across the catacombs;
I wave away Apollo's blackened hand,
and march with your sons
and daughters
into the fields of thunder and lighting.

And from these branches
through swollen slits of light
I watch
as archers lift up their bows,
pull taught their strings, and sing
the strains of violins, (each note
pierces with its graceful flight);

With every breath I know
the music is for me, and I
drip liquid rubies.

Cages III

Laughing crystal slivers rain, crown me in glitter petal shards.
run fast and grab something, anything
sharp.
Quick, before I envelope such fractured light. In trying to heal, I poke and cut.
With eyes Magnified I cannot stop to find the problems as the crystalline seeds blossom
into seventeen perfect replicas of your left iris--Dark, and filled with swallowed possibilities.
Ferocious stranger of mine, dissolving into resonances,
and shimmering with offset oscillations,
you have left in me a piece of you.
But are you a hornet, or a bumble bee.
or a simply crafted wooden sculpture, being torn apart by termites.

Cages II

To follow up on Karen

Draw a door.
Where does it lead?
Only as far as your mind can reach.
The unknown beckons.

Where does it lead?
Who can say, but if you lead the way
I'll follow after you
To depths not often known.

Who can say, but if you lead the way
Who knows what dreams may come?
A future open wide
Why do we open doors?

Perhaps a Poem?

Tim managed to convince me to overcome my irrational fear of Blogs and thus, I am entering the fray.  I like what is going on so far.  I would like to submit, for your reading a poem.  Tim and I were talking the other day about an interesting creative experiment.  He called it a poem explosion.  Or combustion.  Or something like that.  Here is how it works.  I submit a poem.  You take a line of my poem and create your own poem using my line as the first line.  I think this would rock the proverbial Casbah.  This is an older poem of mine.  Lets play!

CAGES

Eyes shining you offer me a hand, lifting me through mire of my own making

Spirals inside rage self-righteous, you lead me to a white-washed wall

Draw a door

Let me turn the handle.  Myself.  Push through.

"You can be.  Anyone.  Do anything."

To prove your point, you built me a glass ceiling

Then shattered it, so I would be free

Laughing crystal slivers rain, crown me in glitter petal shards.

Distant and safe you watch.

I parody St. Sebastian, drip liquid rubies.

I gave you my heart, I suppose.

You gave me wings, you said.

Sewed my butterfly chest together with

Dark criss-crossed child crayons

"I have given you wings. Fly"

My breast, empty.  My wings, fluttering, fettered.

No one hears a heart when it breaks.

In silence, a storm.

Nine Beginnings

The following are nine short blurbs, parts of stories that have yet to be written. They may be the beginnings (as per the title of the post), they may be the conclusions, or they may have been pulled unceremoniously from the middles, waiting to have their worlds filled in around them. I will inevitably take a shot at one or two, but other people should take a crack at any or all of them.

---

John and Sara were about as average as they could get. They lived in a nice house with a small yard surrounded by a white picket fence. John worked as an accountant in the block of offices just off the interstate, and Sara always had dinner on the table by six P.M. They had 2.5 kids and 1.3 dogs, and were generally satisfied with life.
* * *
He was wary of his surroundings, and not without reason. A shadow slid past the gate and melted into the fractured lamplight that cut jagged shapes across the gravestones. He felt a shiver run up his spine and radiate through his arms to the tips of his fingers, and he feared very much that it wasn't from the icy chill of the surrounding night.
* * *
"Take a look, Mr. Wilkins," the man in the suit said to him. "All this could be yours one day. All this could be yours." The man spread out his left arm before them, his right wrapped soundly around Wilkins' shoulders, cigar clenched between his yellow teeth. Wilkins wasn't sure at that moment why in the world he would want this mountain of garbage spread out before him, but somehow the cigar smoke and the cut of the man's suit made it seem like a dream worth having.
* * *
The dog sat down and watched as the ball bounced down the hill, gaining momentum every time it flexed and recoiled on the sloping concrete. He saw the glint of the sun on the red rubber, and also on the hard metal frames of those monstrous vehicles rushing through the intersection below. He panted, tongue waggling, waiting patiently for the inevitable.
* * *
Six sticks, a few paper clips and a piece of gum are not enough to rebuild a boat engine, I don't care how god-damned clever you are.
* * *
Ellen couldn't concentrate. It wasn't her fault, either. She had successfully blocked out the ticking of the wall clock, as well as the quiet slurping noises coming from the desk next to her, where a kid called Billy was chewing on the end of his pencil. It wasn't the stress of the exam, because she had memorized all the mathematical equations she would need, and it wasn't the fact that her boyfriend had just told her that he was considering joining the army and so thought that maybe they should see other people. It wasn't any of that. Sadly, Ellen's brain was rupturing, and there really wasn't anything she could do about it.
* * *
Eight bananas nestled comfortably in the crook of their tree, all bunched together, as happy as ever. They watched the monkey with increasing glee, knowing that soon all their hard work would come to fruition.
* * *
Tourists are everywhere. In every niche of life, there are those who simply come to watch. They see the sights, they drink your beer, and then they go home and tell their friends. And the number of tourists grow, while we sit here and are consumed.
* * *
The music rippled through the air like water, concentric circles bouncing off of every corner and surface in the room. With every heavy step, I pushed through the crowd of half-asleep ghosts in search of the exit. It glowed just beyond reach, the invitingly cool air brushing seductively against my lungs...

Unbeknownst

Unbeknownst to the liberal queen, the maniacal king, or the deranged Herbert, in their small kingdom lived a woodcarver. This woodcarver was renowned throughout his village for his ability to instill a remarkable semblance of life in any and all of his carvings. The village girls loved his baby-dolls, the village boys fought for his soldier carvings, and the farmer with a scarecrow of his crafting hanging in their field was never plagued by crows. Some said the man poured a tiny fraction of his soul into each and every one of his carvings.

His daughter was a brawny lass, with shoulders that were broad and muscular from working in her father's shop. She would hew the forest trees, carry them to the house, peel the bark from the trunk, and lathe the rough timber into usuable sizes and shapes. She did this because her father was unable to due to the fact that he only had one leg. He'd lost the other in one of the wars long ago. She did this because her mother was dead, having died bringing her into this world. But most of all, she did this because she liked it.

The woodcarver's daughter was named Karina, and even as a young girl, she's been a very serious and solemn child. She'd begun helping her father at a very young age due to his injuries, and the woodcarver always praised her for her strong arms and back that brought the wood to his shop so that he could bring food to their table. However, at a certain time in his daughter's life, a father becomes concerned that she recieve an education so that she may grow to her fullest potential, and so, soon after her 18th birthday, the woodcarver enrolled Karina in the finest liberal arts school that would take women.

Karina, was of course, overjoyed and distressed in equal parts: she would be getting an education, but who would care for her father while she was gone?
"Fear not, my buttercup," the woodcarver told her. "Fear not, for with the spread of my fame and the success of the shop last year, I can afford to hire one of the village simpletons to carry in wood from the forest and lathe it for me."
And so, Karina's fate was decided, and that fall, she packed her bags, boarded the carriage from her village, and entered the life of academia.

Due to her strength and muscular physique, Karina was courted by the rugby team at her new school, and after much deliberation, she decided to join them. After all, what better way to stay in shape to help her father when she returned home than by trampling other young ladies into the mud during a scrum. Every evening, on her way home, Karina went to the coffee shop across from the book store and purchased a low-fat, half-caffinated, medium mocha latte which she would sip contentedly on her way back to the dorm. It warmed her from the inside while the showers warmed her from the outside.

II

The Prince, however, did not.

While his academic background had not included any fancy liberal arts college, he was well read, and spent many hours delving through the electronic media and information networks. His vocabulary was extensive. So, while at this particular moment he stood there sullenly as drops from the leaky roof of his throne room splashed on his head( for his castles building and ground department simply refused to work without the inspiration of their beautiful queen) one can only imagine the parade of words, from the vaguely offensive to the truly pornographically insulting, that were running through his head.All of them were directed most poignantly at his soon to be ex-wife. A king could not take this kind of talk, and maintain the respect of his court. Not with this woman still alive.

In all actuality, on a subconscious and unbalanced level, he had already been planing for months on murdering his bride when she next came home. It was all very embarrassing for him, of course. While he was the king, he also maintained a stable-hand alter-ego named Herbert. He had been doing this for as long as he could remember. Or, to be precisely technical about it, he could not remember at all. The two parts of his life, while once carefully and consciously maintained, had now run rampantly different courses, and the two personalities had very little clue of the others existence. When he was king, Herbert's desires lurked in his subconsciouses, unknowingly tainting his decisions as king. When he was Herbert, the king tried desperately, if rather feebly, to break free of the physiological manacles that Herbert managed to place him under whenever he was in charge. If it is not quite apparent to you, dear reader, let me say it plain. Herbert was winning. and Herbert was in love with a tree named Fanny.

His love had been growing steadily for several years, and had gotten to the point where the king himself would find himself, on idle walks with one of his boy-courtesans, beneath that very tree, with surprisingly little interest in the boy. This vexed him, but he gave it off as another byproduct of the departure of his lovely wife.

That lovely wife, who turned out to be an ungrateful feminist strumpet, he thought to himself , once again enraged. She will die for her insulin.
or was it insolence?
and, like a child, he was distracted suddenly by a brightly colored butterfly that landed on the nearby head of his current favorite boy, and he pranced after it gleefully (whether it is the boy or the butterfly he is prancing after is left to the readers own tendencies).

Herbert was delighted, and thought furiously (so the king couldn't hear, of course) about how he was going to get the queen back to the castle and how he would ultimately destroy her. But all the while he kept the shiny image of Fanny blazing in his mind. Soon, my love, he thought. Soon nothing will keep us apart. It will be Fanny and Herbert forever.

At the beginning...

...Once upon a time, there was a girl who was a princess. She had golden hair the color of corn silk, and skin that was smooth and pale and glowed like the full moon. Her eyes, as I've heard it told, shone so brightly that they could be seen from across the sea, and her laughter was known the world around for the light and warmth that it brought to those that heard it. And she was beautiful. More beautiful than anyone you've ever seen, that's for sure.

That was, of course, quite a long time ago. The princess did all the princess-y things: she out-smarted an old witch who was trying to trick away her youth and beauty; she trekked through the forests in search of ancient wonders long ago hidden away; and she went to a fancy ball and danced with the handsome prince who, as I'm sure you know, then went on to ask her hand in marriage. And at the wedding she laughed, and her laughter rang with the bells in the steeple, and everyone in the kingdom felt a certain joy to have heard it. And she knew, from all the story books she had read in secret under her goose-down blankets when her parents thought her asleep in her bed, that it was about this time that she was supposed to live happily ever after. And so she grew up, and ever after drew ever closer.

And she smiled and laughed to herself when she thought about it all, about what had happened and what was to come, and even her quiet laughter sprinkled like snowflakes over the land. It was quite pleasant, she supposed, to live in a huge, enchanted castle with servants who adored her and accommodated her every whim. It was very nice that bluebirds came and fluttered about her as she sang in the garden, chirping and rustling their feathers. And it was great to have an attractive prince for a husband, if you know what I mean.

But the girl, now grown up, knew that something was missing. She felt that, despite the smiles that she put on peoples' faces as she passed them in the marketplace, the life she was living was predictable. Her life was a fable, a tale passed on by mothers to their children as she tucked them in at night, and she couldn't ignore a certain nagging feeling at the back of her mind.

And so she cut her hair and enrolled at a liberal arts college, taking courses in psychology and women's studies. And she learned about female stereotypes, and archetypes, and learned to dissect the idealism and fantasy that had always troubled her a little bit down to their roots in oppression and egoism. And she joined the crew team -- though she wasn't thrilled about getting up at four in the morning, what with psych at 10am and barely enough time to bolt down a frozen waffle for breakfast -- and she got a part-time job at Cafe Libra on the corner across from the campus bookstore. She began to hang out with the hipsters, and listen to National Public Radio -- I mean, Terry Gross says some really insightful shit sometimes, you know? -- and she really loved her job at the coffee shop because they only sold fair trade coffee, and she could like totally dig that.

And one day her cell phone rang, and it was her husband the prince calling to ask if she was going to come home when the semester was over, because he and the rest of the people in the kingdom just weren't as happy without her beauty and her laughter to brighten the days.

And she gave him a derisive snort, a laugh that, for the first time ever, was drenched in sarcasm and cut off his words. And she said, "You know, that sounds like an emotional dependency issue, and it really isn't my responsibility."

And then she hung up. And, wearing a little smirk on her face, she curled up in her 100% cotton sheets and went to bed. Well, first she checked her email, and played a few rounds of Text Twist. But then she went to bed.

And she felt good.