***** Cinderella
You’re way cooler than she is
Let me put on those sparkling shoes for you
You've worked hard enough as it is
Not everyone works as hard as an independent woman
The other guys should take notes
You wrote them all down on Stick-e notes
And smacked their foreheads with your written words
Isn't that what most people want to do to some people?
She doesn't play any games
She just gets the job done

I was thirteen when I broke my wrist for the first time,
Miming Cinderella Man's fists as they jabbed faster than jets through the sky.
He was blue collar, blue jeans, blue bruises and blue eyes;
Waiting for his chance, and then taking it by the blind-side,
He taught me the meaning of a left hook to life and coming back from behind.
I was raised on Cinderella.

She was thirteen when daddy read her the tale that first time,
and she grew up wishing to be Cinderella, miming her words and her stride,
She wore blue dresses, smoked blue crystals, cried blue tears with blue eyes;
Waiting to be saved by a prince with blood bluer than money could buy,
Cinderella taught her to sit back and wait for her princely perfect guy,
She was raised on Cinderella.

We were raised on Cinderella,
We were twenty and change when we locked blue and green eyes,
Mine had darkened to green by that eye-locking time,
Life tends to darken things; It's just how it goes, and when mine
took that hue, things were no longer so blue.
Because even though we were both raised on Cinderella,
Princesses and Paupers don't find love; When they do it isn't "true"
Because no blue crystal smoked could cloak the pain and disguise;
No fairytale magic can hold back real tears from real eyes.
My Cinderella was a prize fighter;
Her Cinderella was the prize,
but the stories are different, and in the end, both are lies.

cinderella looked out of a tiny window covered with steele bars. the sun brightly shining through, the sky a beautiful pinkish purple. she wondered if she would ever feel the warmth of the sunlight again as she touched the window. she looked down at what used to be a gorgeous blue gown, now tattered and toarn. she touched the fabric softly remembering how her eyes shined when she first saw it. & the struggle that ruined it. her eyes began to swell up with tears. ¨i cant take this much more¨ she thought. ¨i wont...¨ she decided, her sad eyes and broken heart now filled with rage and hostility. her shaking hands now clinched in fists. ¨i will be just as mad, limitless, and unhumane as he is. i will be decieving, cold and cruel. and i won't feel anything about it. ill treat him like a doormat instead of a person just like he treated me. the only difference will be that i will not allow him to live.¨

¨we will see who is dim witted.¨

cinderella layed in a dark and cold prison. awaiting her husband, her tormentor, and her captures return, tears rapidly falling down her rosie red cheeks as she looked at her broken arm. ¨
why would you run away from me like that? now look at you... your arm is broken.¨ she remembered him shouting. ¨you're pathetic.¨ staring at the rusty bars she began to feel hopeless. on the outside she had been silently broken but on the inside she felt as if she were screaming. screaming from the pain, screaming from the betrayal and deceit. screaming because what she had believed to be her dream come true had become nothing but a complete and absolute nightmare. screaming because she had fallen in love with a fairytale. a lie, a predator, a munipulator, a monster. how could i let myself fall in love with someone so incredibly evil? she thought. maybe i wanted to believe in him. maybe i felt as if i needed too. to believe in someone or something. to be rescued. i think that he sinced that  about me. that i wanted to be saved by someone or something so he descised himself as my savior.. and i believed in him. and now here i am. maybe he was right, maybe i was pathetic and naive. maybe i just hoped that i had finaly found what i had been waiting so long for and that all of my years of crushing lonliness and longing for something more had finaly been over. but it was all a lie. and now im going to have to find a way to save myself.

because of you
i believed love was attainable,
and that i could be swept away.

but now i know it is as
realistic as that infernal glass slipper,

because everything,
like glass,
will *break.

Yes, the Glass Slipper fits.

But I will not go with you.

You stand shocked in your magnificent Uniform,
Black shoes and Spurs sparkling
Sword shining in its scabbard,
Proud blue eyes wide,
Handsome face stunned

Prince Henry Alexander
Your father gave a ball to find a queen,
but you found me instead.
We will marry
BUT you will be the one transformed, not me

You rode to my house on your beautiful Horse,
descending from your castle,
to bring your future queen back to your life
of Privilege and Royalty.

No. I will bring you into my world of
menial work and sacrifice and exhaustion.

My fairy Godfather is here to help transform you.
You came with a glass shoe for my foot.
But now YOUR polished shoes and silk socks,
footwear of a Prince,
are coming OFF your privileged feet.

You are stunned and horrified
You resist and argue
You refuse and try to leave
Your pride and anger rise
But there is no escaping your destiny.

You are now the barefoot Prince among the cinders
Barefoot in your Dazzling Court Uniform
Would you ever dance barefoot in your elegant Palace
Naked soles instead of smartly clicking shoes?

Now we take your Royal Sword
You will not be fighting battles anymore
Your Medals and White Gloves are pulled off
You shudder as you surrender pieces of your
Royal self to our hands.

Here are the rough clothes of a peasant farmer
made of rough burlap.

What are these? You gasp

Strip off your magnificent Imperial Uniform.
Scarlet Tunic and pressed striped blue Trousers
Royal Sash and Epaulettes
that belong to your former Princely life
Step into your new uniform of labor and poverty.

You struggle with outrage and frustration
but a surge of courage gives way
and crumbles
as my Fairy Godfather strips you of your inherited
Nobility and Privilege

Send a message to the King and Queen
You are renouncing your Royal Throne
Your birthright
Your former life and former future
All that you once were
and all that you were born to be.

You are no longer Prince Henry Alexander
Soon to be King Henry Alexander IV...
What name is that for a peasant?
You are now Hank
That is all. Just Hank.

Renounce your Princely Education
your formal training
your upper class speech and manner.
We will help you strip yourself
of your High Position.
Do not worry.

Your Aristocratic identity is already dead.

We will sell your splendid Sword.
We will trade your former sparkling black shoes
for a pig
Exchange your former Brilliant Uniform
for a goat
Your former ring with the Royal Insignia
for grain and seeds
Trade in your former Spurs and black silk socks with
the monogram of your former name for a plow.

Your head of wonderful Golden hair,
the hair of a Prince on a Throne,
the hair of Warrior in Battle,
hair for a Palace, hair for a Ball.

I remember the palace lights
shining on your beautiful Golden hair....

All that glorious hair
must be shaved off.

Your handsome face already in shock.
Your mouth drops open.

Your Golden hair will be sold
to make a wig for a wealthy bald man.
Let him wear the Princely hair with pride.
YOUR pride and dignity are shriveling and
vanishing like raindrops on a hot day

You will work long hours in the fields
You will sow and reap, tend the animals,
Chop trees, you will be a beast of burden,
We have no Ox.
We will attach the plow to your Princely shoulders.
You will have no need of thick, full golden hair.

Your Princely hands and feet are smooth, clean, white
protected by shoes, boots, spurs, gloves.
But soon the earth and rain and wind
will enter and crack them.

Your beautiful, beloved Horse,
Groomed in the Royal Stables,
waiting outside the house
is no longer yours.
Yes, we will sell him as well.

Together we will live a life of drudgery.
We will have children who will never know
their Royal lineage.
You have descended to my level
and here you will remain...

I will name our new pig Prince
to remind you, as a gentle joke for summer nights...

we walked by the haunted house
and made out on the front porch

people say we fell in love at first sight that evening,
but i couldn’t see until the morning

and that beautiful birthmark that covered half of your body
i ran my fingers across it
like some kind of seamstress

and you threw my legs over your shoulders
and bit my fingers and i couldn’t stop looking at your birthmark,
it looked like a scar

and i asked you to drive me to walgreens
something about a plan,
what we were going to be

but we got lost and tangled
and my kitten bit our ankles in the kitchen
where i made you black coffee and i rubbed my eyes
too much, too much, i broke a blood vessel
honestly way too much

i was scared of the bruises on my thighs
and i thought  i wouldn’t see you again

“i’ll never see him again”

so i drove to walgreens
and the girl at the counter judged me,
and i bought a donut


you're some kind of cinderella boy
leaving a broken cigarette under my mattress

your birthmark left a stain on my eyelids and my hands
and i forgot to ask your name

She would be dressed pretty in rags
slaving like there's no tomorrow
without that bit of altruism
maybe a tad kindhearted
shrouded in materialism.

Fairy godmother's name
is money
lures her
to a game of fame
keeps silent
of its rules.

Her beauty
makes her a winner
she would
be drunk
attention
glamour
pleasure.

Unknowingly
games drawn to an end
the clock strikes twelve;
Struck her
riches to rags
the magic of money
only lasts so long
Struck her
still had not find
her one true love
at the eleventh hour.

Sobered
ran out in embarrassment
left only a glass slipper.

Desolate
returning to rags
a druggie for fame
with much hope
a prince charming
would remember
her to find.