There’s a story about Calypso or maybe it’s a legend
or maybe it’s religion

Daughter of a Titan, seducer of a hero
Maybe she was actually the hero

Must it always be about princesses and dragons, girls and ogres?

Anyway, we’re the dragons and the princesses tonight
Summer whites instead of white
wedding gowns-

There’s a bachelorette party a few tables down and the bride looks uncomfortably close to my age

The four of us, the dragon girls, around the table

There’s a story about sisterhood
or maybe it’s a legend
or maybe it’s religion

Daughters of regular men and students of 4 different subjects, citizens of three different countries between us

Sounds like a bad bar joke: a Romanian, two Americans, and a Chinese citizen walk into a restaurant on a Saturday night...

We laugh at ourselves before the punch line hits (and these young women actually liked themselves!)

When you’re the princess, ogre, dragon, girl
When you’re the prize, villain, hero
you get to have all the fun. That’s the secret to all this, I think: have all the fun you can

Have all you can. Have all of it. Be all of it. Complex human beings with complexes of our own behind our eyes- we laugh

The bachelorette party orders more alcohol

China and Romania plan their trip to Greece for spring break over
the side salads and
COVID-19 travel restrictions
Americans try their best to help navigate the travel website

Imagine this: history happens and we live through it anyway.

We plan through it anyway.

Once upon a time, Calypso trapped Odysseus.

That’s the way the story goes, anyway, but every dragon knows
men only come to the lair looking for a prize
he must not have been expecting something that looked like us
he must not have been expecting the dragon to be the prize