Little red riding hood

Didn’t have to wander into darkness but chose to

Lured by the ache that lingers in the nothingness...

Perhaps

We lost more than language along the way

Perhaps there were other things that slipped with the words

Like the kinship between men

Or the safety woman once felt in the night

Perhaps as we became civilized

We lost something that

Can’t be placed into words...

Do men worry like women do

do they carry the weight in their heart,

the sorrow in their movements

the apologies in every word.

Do men worry like women do

or are we given it at birth,

not a trace from Eve,

but our shared scar left by generations of women

held back from acknowledging the truth,

men do not worry because they give us their burdens to hold....

Monsters don’t live under the bed

Good doesn’t always conquer all

Fairy godmothers can’t grow wings

Princes only worry about saving themselves

Princesses fall to their death in attempt to leave their towers

Life never gives us the chance for happily ever after...

Lost

A little afraid

Things used to make sense

But there is tomorrow to look to

And a future she isn’t sure she has the strength for...

There are some days, she wishes she never found the note. She wishes she had walked by it, thought of a piece of trash, and threw it away. She keeps it with her, always tucked in her breast pocket, close to her heart. It’s pages have been folded over and over, the crease is beginning to break, the ink beginning to fade on the edges where her fingers have left their marked.

She can feel its words...

Always swimming deep

Avoiding the dark of man

Seeking only light...

Death, her siren song

No one bothered to tell her

That she had a choice...

Ten years wasted with one signature

Nine different ways to say stay

Eight months of fighting

Seven times I should have left

Six days of silence

Five types hatred

Four souls left amiss

Three words that don’t matter

Two people walking different paths

One love left behind...

She had always hoped for more,

every time she walked across the ice,

she had hoped it would crack.

Not so that she would die,

so that she could see the world from underneath,

and hopefully find something better....