You were always reading stories
Of girls who did what you could not
The ones who searched for spindles, dug their
Flesh in and pierced their thumbs, emerged stronger
And bloodier and more beautiful and danced off to
New adventures, new desires while you
Lay on your childhood bed, half-asleep
Tired from homework and diets and
Exercise routines, flipping the pages of
A Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog
Knowing your parents were downstairs
In separate rooms, watching separate TVs
Guarding the home, guarding your dreams
So that your mind could not dare to clothe you
In the lacy lingerie; your mind couldn’t craft
You into something worthy of a different kind of
Attention, something more than grades and
Graduate schools, something you so desperately
Wanted to become, even if it meant possession
Even if it meant being awakened by a stranger’s
Touch, his tongue, but you would have had to take the
Step, had to touch the spindle and you were a
Firstborn, coddled and protected and
Imprisoned in a world of shouldn’ts and
Couldn’ts, so you shrank and slept and
Wandered enchanted castles in
Reveries: dungeons and towers
Beasts and princes, walls weeping moisture
On stone and balustrades blooming moon
Flowers; you, cursed to make beauty with
Your words when you wanted so much to
Be beautiful in your body, wanted so much
To be a youngest daughter fleeing through
The forest, lovely in her loose-limbed
Abandon, to be the creature each demon and
Every savior yearned to consume; but no
Adventurer came to the house your parents
Guarded, no one arrived to rescue or ravish you
So you slept and by the time you realized you could
Only wake yourself, the pearls of moonlight had faded
The sun was dull as an old spindle
Struggling to pierce through the clouds.