Rapunzel Considers the Stolen Years
The tower is magical from the outside.
For the prince has found golden stairs to heaven
unlocked a bird from its cage
unbraided the python hair coiled about me
discovered in the heights, a singing harp of gold.
On the inside, nothing happens.
From the window to the roof—if my bare feet and nimble toes dare—
that is the extent of my travels. My eyes imagine further
to the far country where the sunsets actually shine.
I have never known trees could give shade
nor rivers could babble gossip and peace in one place
But so they did for my mother who kept me
whispering, purity, purity, purity.
I was to be kept from the fallen scraped knee at cobblestone
roads, cat scratches, wrenched and twisted
heart, illness, phobias, the height of epiphany,
the fall that comes after pride, and grief.
And men.
She cut the hair and let the adventurer fall to the brambles.
I had never even known scissors caused no pain to hair.
I had grown up believing hair never grew back.
With her own cry stifled and swallowed, she smiles and
bakes cookies and pretends my hair is only so short
because we have reversed time and age,
and the only thing there is to learn is forgetting.
Tragedy only happens outside the tower.
She has already blinded me.
Ellen Huang has a BA in Writing and a minor in Theatre from Point Loma Nazarene University. She is published in over 30 venues, including South Broadway Ghost Society, Awkward Mermaid, Sirens Call, Diverging Magazine, HerStry, Ink & Nebula, Rigorous Magazine, and Apparition Lit. She enjoys practicing pyrography, swimming in the ocean, wearing capes, reenacting Disney scenes on demand, directing original skits, and staying up way too late. Follow her creative work: worrydollsandfloatinglights.wordpress.com