I remember creeping reverently past
The yawning maw
Snarling braches, overgrown foliage
Sad eye sockets
The defeated roof
Listing drunkenly to the left
The black spirals on the ground
Where the fire had scored earth bare
Crouched from the sanctity of the sidewalk
Damp palm snaking back to
Clasp tight
My best friend’s hand

Fear skittering up our spines
We skirted past poisonous green weeds
That swayed in the yard
Unkempt and our eyes
Darted, seeking, feral
For movement in that open doorway
Her shadow
The witch

Years pass

Looking out into suburbia
Manicured green boxes
And cookie-cutter plans
From my own cracked window
My newly acquired reno,
I spot a flash of moving colour
From beyond the overgrown hyacinths
A tousled flash of curls between the green
Puzzlement ripples as
Three lanky preadolescent forms
Snake from the protection of my shaggy firs
Thin chests taking a breath before
Their whippy arms point accusing
And I barely see a flash before
The clutched rock leaves the
Stupid-looking red headed one’s hand
Crashing through my upstairs master

And I hear it

Witch, witch, where’s the witch?

And I feel it.

My eyes beadily narrow
Peering over my bulbous nose
Shoulders hunching
Toes curl
And I reach for
The broom leaning next
The painter’s cloth
Grabbing on with knobbly fingers
Hurling myself
Out
Of
The door

Their eyes widened
Disbelieving
As they spot me  
And thumbs clutched between index fingers
They run
Leaving me cackling
Breathless

While my familiar
Looks up from
Sunning her black self
On the step.

I glimpse her profile
Off the glare
Of the overhead
Transparent

Cloaked by lank,  
Swinging hair

Eyes curtained
And a negative space of
Existence
Round her chair.

Forgotten  
Neglected
By the rowdy, stinging noise
Peers whose vibrant adolescent mouths blare
Out one-note identities

She is there and

Then she’s gone

And my mind
Disconnects
Mid-lecture

Squinting into the shadowed corner  
Looking for my grade-8 self.

It’s not always *****
And glass slippers
Handsome gloved fingers impeccably asking for
Just one dance
There aren’t always fairies with good intentions
And neatly pressed dresses
Popping out from
Rose bushes while you cry to
A mother grave
Sometimes dirt under fingernails
Doesn’t come off
Sometimes you learn to live by
Snatching crusts thrown in
Hot fires so you
Reach in to hunger
And come out with scarred fingers covered in ashes
Chores are not always performed
By animated, peeping creatures
And instead you know their presence in the dark as
Whispered tails run over your ratty hem
It’s not always a fairy-tale
Sometimes you sing harshly
To the tune of a whip on your back
As the words
**** from the cinders
Ring in your ears
But sometimes clever fingers steal material
Working late into the night
And pacts made with older Magic’s  
Help you bewitch a prince so he sees
Only you
And sometimes you get to watch blood fall
On your wedding dress as your tormentors eyes
Are plucked out by winged doves
And you do feel happy
In the sunlight
Until in the dark, again
Hands run over you, whispering then
Biting like the rats
And you realize, lying back
That you have traded one form of servitude
For another
And happily-ever-after has
Only just begun.