Fates Come In Threes

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.

Cinderella’s Past Still Haunts Her

Cinderella’s past still haunts her.

The voices she left behind still taunt her.

She burned all those bridges down

And watched her enemies dance around

On the red-hot iron coal left behind.

But, now her heart jumps every midnight,

Waiting for her prince to see her as the wretched maiden

Her family locked away in that dark and dirty basement,

Where she cast her needs aside in forced self-sacrifice.

Now, she panders to her subjects with the sweetest tenderness.

Hoping to avoid an insurrection,

She analyzes every conversation,

Thinking she enjoyed the company of birds and mice

More than these games of cards and dice.

And she wonders, to whom does she owe her shiny new life?

To the gallant prince who made her his wife?

Does his kingdom belong now to her?

How much of this land did she earn?

And all of this because of a shoe?

Did she really deserve to have her wishes come true?

She looks over at her prince’s charming face,

And for a moment, feels her worries fade away.

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.

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.

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?

In the Light of Domesticated Boredom

When the Titans created Man, there were no gifts left to give him. So, Prometheus, in pity, offered all he could find: the knowledge and wisdom of the gods and stolen fire. Man sat in the light of this fire, watching the shadows it casted on the walls, and thought he saw the truth of who he was: a heavenly soul shackled by the limitations of this world, a godlike mind trapped in the body of a mortal beast.

Although he had no sharp teeth, no strong muscles, no gift of flight or speed, he sought superiority over the creatures created before him, for surely, he had received the greatest gifts of all from the gods above. With fresh vigor, he jumped up and set out at once to conquer the land, to use his gifts to make living in this wilderness as easy as he could for himself. Using his wits and his fire, he produced the greatest and the worst of inventions.

In the new world he created, separate and unrecognizable from the wilderness he came from, Man now sat in domesticated boredom. So, he turned his dominating spirit towards testing the limitations of his own body. He started with sport: how high could he jump? How fast could he run? Restless still, he turned to greater exploitations: how little could he sleep? How hard could he work before he collapsed?

Sitting in the light of his incandescent bulb, Man finally saw the truth of who he really was: a heavenly soul shackled by the limitations of this world, a godlike mind trapped in the body of a mortal beast, commissioned by the capricious gods, along with all the earth’s creatures, to simply inhabit the natural world for their delight.