Queen Grimhilde Urges Snow White to Eat the Damn Apple Already
You are here now,
your youth displayed like fledgling trees
all swaying toward adoration.
Wasn’t it just yesterday
you were flinging wet dirt
in the garden, mud in your teeth?
I almost liked you then.
This apple, sweet child, is not what you think.
Of course, I’ve heard what they say about me —
wicked, jealous, old.
I’m guilty of wanting your skin.
It looks so well-rested.
And the way you wield sex like a dagger
without even knowing how sharp it is? Inspired —
if naive. You should know:
the world is a beautiful prison
when you are a woman.
Its gates are carved with compliments
and expectations. I’ve bled on its bars,
then been told I was too loud.
If I’d had a choice, I’d have danced
naked in an unbeautiful forest, drunk on mundanity
and unremarkable joys. But instead, I got a throne,
a crown, and a man
whose wandering hands
are rivalled only by his wandering thoughts.
Every night, I practice crying at his funeral.
So far, it’s not convincing.
Darling, this is also your future:
a life that looks like a portrait
and feels like a coffin.
A man who believes he’s handsome, holy, heroic —
just because no one’s told him otherwise.
You’ll smile until your cheeks sag,
quilt until your mind thins.
This apple?
It’s an exit.
A way to stick your teeth
into your own choosing.
Go on.
Be the villain
if it gets you free.
Belle Writes to Her Father While Imprisoned in the Beast's Castle
Ambition burns in my blood.
I itch to name every unexplored star —
and what is this, if not a new frontier?
Things I’ve learned:
don’t follow wolves. Don’t trust furniture,
no matter how charming.
But I won’t apologize
for wrenching the ice
from your hands.
You belong in sunlight,
even when petty villagers
mistranslate witty as weird.
They don’t know you. Have never
tried. Would rather blind themselves
and follow him.
He threatened marriage.
I chose exile.
Here, I have a library
with an endless ladder.
Dishes that sing. Wardrobes
who find me enchanting. And yes —
a Beast who shreds velvet
just to feel something.
But life is incomplete
without danger.
Please —
don’t frown.
I finally know what it means
to live.
An Open Letter to Gretel from Ursula
We sang in underwater castles while hurricanes raged
ships. We slithered through
wreckage in pursuit of broken promises.
Let me tell you about voice and glory:
soundless bubbles, puppy love, unconvincing
and foolish, leveraged by girls
against their own power. No, home is not your wish.
More like women written without claws for hearts,
freedom from hunger, a life
unobstructed by trees. Your wish:
a father who would not suffer
your abandonment; bread crumbs
made from hand grenades. Yours is the tortured
wish of a prisoner, eager to rusty blade her own arms
if it means she can save her body. Child,
that urge is only shadow. It is not real.
Contour your shoulder blades, escape
your bars, and keep your fire
burning. We have lost so much already:
drowned it or left it in vast forests,
like the last of our best memories,
which now only come to us as dreams. Remember,
lost is just another word for begin.
We are already everything. Let us sing.
The Grandma'am Sips Her Tea; Watches the Capitol Sleep
It is difficult to be alive
and full of sharp
edges. Alone wearing the dark
lipstick. Spatula in hand.
Polished & prepared
for judgment.
There will be no killings
tonight. Just the drones’
soft purr. A silence to remember
what separates the savage
and the civilized. A moment to cultivate
a new history.
Her grandson used to sing
for joy. Now he sings for bones.
That’s progress, isn’t it?
She sniffs at the weak
tea. Sits among her white
roses. Luxury used to mean more.
The once-adored velvet couch
burned alive during the ration riots.
It screamed
so beautifully.
Nothing screams anymore.
The fires have lost all poetry.
Tomorrow, the bombs will return.
Tonight, the Capitol sleeps.
But she does not. She stirs
her tea counterclockwise.
Someone has to
keep the dream from shattering.
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