Let's read one of those stories
where everything turns out happy in the end.
Where the knight is strong and handsome,
the princess beautiful,
and the wicked dragon easily defeated.
Not so scary after all.
(I know, it's sexist
that the knight saves the princess,
but come on -
it's just a story.)
Let's float away on a dream
for at least a few hours
and pretend we can solve the world's problems.
Or even just our own.
Because, see, sometimes the princess
hates herself.
And sometimes she's fat
and ugly
and stupid.
And her knight can't come -
he's stuck in traffic -
but even if he got there, he would be helpless, too.
Because sometimes the dragon lives
somewhere deep inside the princess-
in her gut -
roaring and clawing and scratching
and aching.
What's the knight supposed to do
if the princess HIDES the dragon
((under the rug))
whenever anyone walks by?
You can do that, you know.
Hide the dragon.
But only for so long,
and it'll always find its way back.
Those stories are scary.
Not a loud-scary
with guns and danger and death.
A quiet-scary.
The kind where the princess
sobs into her pillow
every night when the sun goes down
and some times can't bring herself
to get up again in the morning.
It's a story of mumbled excuses,
late homework,
starving, purging,
cutting,
eyes that won't quite meet.
I don't like those stories.
The dragons in them are a lot harder to kill.