Princess Mononoke is still my favourite film
even though I know that when the dark monkeys
start speaking, if you'd been there, you would
have half-laughed in freaked-out amusement
('That is the most bizarre dubbing I've ever seen!')

It's still my favourite film, even though I know
when the Princess says 'I hate humans!' you
would have nodded and said 'yep.' It's still
my favourite film even though I would prefer
to watch it in the reflections of your eyes. It's
still my favourite film, even though your hair
isn't obscuring my view. It's still my favourite,
it is, it's still my favourite, even though the old shadow
of you is painting the inside of my arms black
and even though you promised that the next time
I saw it, we would be only atoms away from
each other, and I thought I would be able to feel the
heat from your heart beating in the palms of your hands.
I guess I had hoped you would lend me that
warmth to wrap around my fingertips but
it's fine, I can wear gloves, and hope they
don't simply keep the cold in.

It's still my favourite, it's still my ******* favourite,
it's still my favourite even though the colour has
bled out of it a little, and I know it has to do with you
because I saw this photo of you on Facebook and
I swear your wrists were stained with that lost dye.
I wondered at the time if you'd noticed it was
there, or if you were just like a guilty child
with lips unconsciously covered in strawberry jam
contrasting with a brightly innocent smile.
I swear it was there, even though every photo of you is
made of splinters, now, my eyes must have realised that
it's not good for me to look at you, I think, so the
alarm begins to sound and their sprinkler system
drenches my cheeks with cold water and
as a result of this your picture fractures,
it fragments into crystalline pieces that can't
splatter an explanation mark on the surface
of my brain, the way your silhouette does.
How lucky I am that my eyes, at least, are on my side.
Those shards of you are sharp, though, and as
your picture shatters inside my eyes, I am
nearly always left with shrapnel wounds. They
embed, you know, and I have this feeling that
they migrate towards each other under my skin,
so despite my precautions, your face is tattooing
itself, scratch by scratch, onto my retina.

He called me princess. I don't think much of it, let it slip my mind from time to time.
I'm fine with it.
Until today, when I watched a woman tell a little girl she wasn't one.
Talking about how her daddy shouldn't call her what she's not and her mama shouldn't be filling her head with words like, "You can be anything you want to."
Like, its not true and if you don't tell her now she'll never outgrow the idea of being
A princess.

And though Heaven forbid we dreams big,
I, was definitely a princess.
Princess Aleisia of the Beauties, a forest is my own back yard,
my castle was a tree I literally believed gnomes lived beneath: Alglenia.
An orphaned warrior; I was half gypsy, half native, half Neopian Light Faerie,
And though I clearly was not a princess who did math, I protected my subjects from monsters and evil that was constantly trying to overthrow good.
I could wield a Morning Star better than any boy on the block.
I had inner battles with myself, for I had the blood and horns of a dragon and it was always a challenge to be both Athena's apprentice and an aspiring sage because I thrived in the dark.
I was part demon like Inuyasha,
I was Sango,
I was Mononoke,
I was Mulan,
I was Pocahontas,
I was Bell AND the Beast,
I was Susan and Lucy,
I was Esmerelda, Anastasia

And that's still a big part of me.

Because, if someone had listed all the things I couldn't be while my knees were still to weak for me to stand and speak up for what I believed in, I probably would never have been a poet.
So excuse me for using the word "heroine" with the last ounce of innocence the world has yet to offer a little girl.
Pardon me for trying to learn to infuse grace and charm with strength and loyalty.
Now, imagine with me.
The places I used to play left in ruin. My castles disintegrating. The echo of my battle cries through the forests and fields and mountains have long since faded because the heir to my throne never took her place.

Deny her the right to grow out of her child hood?
Deny me the right to write?
This was never a career choice of mine,
This will always be a way of life.