Once upon a time, in a world that looks like yours      
there was a girl with
golden hair
that hung like a banner across her back in a
a sea of sandy metal
that whispered across the air
all the untold secrets of the water and the flowers
and their petals


and when she blinked, her eyes were blue
and if you leaned too close you'd
drown in them
like the hags who tumbled down the wells
and shrieked for help
that no one cared about
because they didn't hear their voice
or see their
ebony locks trailing like abandoned sea **** after them
because they didn't fit into the space the puzzle maker had carved
and couldn't conquer the tedium of difference


and the girl was tugged by hand to go to Church
and her prayers were secret treasures
that trickled from her lips
and tasted like righteousness
each word more crystal than the last
soaked in honey at the tip
and smothered in wonder and glory
and the days as they passed


and they never mentioned the girls she teased
who wore headscarves
or bindis
that she'd printed with the colours of endless torment
in hues of cheerless and agony
and the girls never told her that
if they took them off
like she begged them to
laughter sprinkled in and stirred
they'd have to show her how much more pain
her jeering caused them


and the girl made mockeries of the unconventional
but that was okay because
everyone did
their eyes creasing up into slits of derision
in universal agreement
skidding past the true
whims of their heart and growing to
resent them


and the eccentric pressed themselves carefully
into the mould of society's
baking tray
their souls thrashing out in pain and hatred
as they compressed their emotions
and intelligence
and the beauty they found in the strangest of things
into the shell that had been vacated for them
when its previous owner had shrivelled up
and given in
and died


and all the way through life, the girl was beautiful
but she still  blew char
over her eyelashes
and stained her lips the post-box red that's found in
first kisses and
poetry and
scrawled crayoned hearts and
fading wishes


and she made fun of the red that pulsed
in the form of acne on
her classmates' faces
growing their hair out long to cover their pain
until no one could see their shame
and pouring their money into
the collection tins of mass chain stores
of cream and gloop and products
until their faces were marred by make-up
until their mothers didn't recognise them anymore
and they cried


and the girl was thinner and happier than anyone
but because it amused her
her wrists were slit
so her peers doled out their sympathy
and held battles over
who could make her smile first
and she fasted to become thinner
and she collected
four leaf clovers


and her classmates ignored the tender puckered skin
of the children that hacked at
their flesh and
tried to hide it alongside their hurt
and she cackled at the ribs
that seemed to try and burst from their flesh
like hungry mouths were trying to eat
them from the inside out
and they collected things because they feared
what would happen if they didn't
because that was OCD


and when the girl grew up, she married a boy
and he was tall and
his hair was night
and he was handsome in the conventional way that was accepted
perfect match
the paradisiacal sight of
dainty damsel clutching the arm of the
kind of man she'd read about in books
she'd been infatuated with him before they'd met


and the boys who fell in love with each other were outcast and spat on
their hearts torn into tatters and shredded in machines
by the people who thought they could decide for them
that if they didn't love girls then they'd love no one at all
because in the fairy tales they'd read as young children
they learnt that
prince = princess
and the prince never runs away with the woodcutter
because where would the princess be then?


and the girl still lives on today, in a world that looks like yours
her words a deadly poison
reaping and bleeding
crushing her prey between *******
and showing songs to the ears of the impressionable,  young or old
sowing seeds in their brains
that blossom in their hearts
and she is beautiful
and she is terrible
and she is nameless but for the title of
Society’s own child
and she is blameless
for it is the parent
at fault.