The Effigy Of Perfection

The Effigy of Perfection

Perfection’s a preposterous goal,

A girl made of stone –

Too green for this world –

Thrust onto a base with no support,

All alone.

Dodging the jabs of her ever-unsatisfied sculptors,

She chisels away at herself on her own

With innocuous hands that don’t know

The intricacies of her place in the world.

There she goes,

Desperately chipping away at her woes,

Leaving her armature wire exposed,

Until all she has left is her heart of stone,

Still blazing from the kiln in the throes

Of sorrow.

The Longevity of a Spark

A man sat at his workbench, devoid of ideas.

That’s when a fairy with blue hair appeared.

With the wave of her wand, this muse gave him the spark

That only ignites in a true artist’s heart.

What he couldn’t have foreseen would soon overwhelm him.

The world fell in love with his brilliant creation.

His brainchild now hungered for worldly indulgence

And set out to meet the public’s endearment.

Alone in his cottage, the man kept creating, but

Nothing outshined his grand magnum opus.

He sat counting the stars through his window one night,

And pondered the life span of such fleeting lights.

For what wonderment can a spark truly bring

If its radiance lasts longer than a blink?

Rapunzel Still Weeps

Rapunzel still weeps for her foreboding tower.

She still misses the vines that flowered

Up the sides of those stones, a beacon of hope

Outside the barren walls that felt like home.

There’s freedom in a cell, and comfort in a cage.

The windowsill where birds show up to sing becomes your stage.

Out here, where the sun’s too bright,

And the air’s too pure to breathe right,

She clings to memories of wanting.

In liberty, she finds herself always running

From ghosts and goblins and thieves

Trying their best to ransack her peace.

At night, she dreams of days spent searching for light

And waiting for saviors and heroic knights,

While poisons from Gothel permeate her heart,

And curses of evil witches echo in her art.

Rapunzel escaped from her foreboding tower.

Now she struggles with the shackles of freedom’s power.

Haunted Dolls

I’ve always had a fear of haunted dolls,

How unnaturally perfect they appear in their pomp,

How they shimmer in the sun but seem to smirk in the dark.

You wonder what’s behind those vacant eyes,

The secrets kept unspoken by their pursed, demure smiles.

At first, you think you’re imagining their ominous cries.

But then you hear the cracks in their faces

Pop when their grief leaks out of their porcelain cages,

And you can’t ignore the signs of bloodstained devastation.

I’ve always had a fear of haunted dolls,

But when I think about their stories, I wonder what

Kind of dark injustice trapped those poor souls in their vessels.

And how long have I been sitting on this shelf?

How the Girl Tamed the Beast

Under the light of a calming blue moon,

Someone erupted, and chaos ensued.

No one remembers why they were fighting,

Or why their land was barren and blighted.

So, off they went, riled up and fiery,

In search of a scapegoat to tax with their anguish.

The child they found appeared unescorted,

With an innocence that drew in the wicked.

So, they followed her home and beat her down,

While the ground rumbled with a distant snarl.

No one but the girl heard the thunderous growl.

A monster was rising in the depths of her home.

As their abuse grew, so did the beast,

A creature grappling with too short a leash.

At a break in the strife, the girl escaped.

She ran down the stairs to her lupine mate.

She cautiously approached its dark domain,

Scars glistening with the memories of the fray.

With its chain gripped tightly, she took the lead,

But all the beast wanted was to be free.

It clawed at her skin until finally,

She let the beast go, quite unsteadily.

Then what happened next occurred suddenly,

And the villagers were caught all unwittingly.

The beast slashed away at this loathsome scene.

Since that day, it’s said the girl can be seen

Sitting in peace while her Anger roams free.

Fates Come in Threes

You’re sitting in a smoke-filled tent,

Bursting with the anticipation of the crowd around you.

Lights circling the arena land on three rings in the middle of the stage.

In the first, a young girl spins a long thread,

Her eyes wide with wonder and excitement,

And the audience shares in her joy and curiosity.

In the second ring, a woman measures the thread.

She carefully watches the joys and sorrows of life play out in the colors of the thread dancing and spinning in her hands,

And the audience is enraptured.

In the third and final ring, an old woman quickly cuts the thread

With no regard,

And the audience sits in solemn silence,

Their hearts full of melancholy nostalgia.