1. The Little Mermaid Sings “White Flag”*
I know you think that I shouldn’t still love you
I won’t put my hands up and surrender
Tell you that
Water/land didn’t matter
You said
It looked
Falling from that jetty into the breakwaters
After your slain love
Fell across my knife
There will be no white flag above my door
Cresting waves
Salt in my flesh/earth
I am cursed
This body can no longer be re-inhabited
You conqueror
Marriage is for the equality
Of man/woman
You couldn’t stand
With her you could be whole I am
Half/human
Afraid to look in my own eyes
Would have seen
Feet shod in your shoes
Always will be
All that was there will be there still
No one else
Can hold this knife between us
I slay
Without you
It is still
For you
Where’s the sense in that
They called me lovesick
To follow you
What did I gain for myself
I am sexed human
Only for you
And you will think that I’ve moved on
Yearning for the sky
Sprang into your arms
You are not cloudless or bloodless
Cold-blooded, she called me
Reptilian I took her form
I cannot kiss you
You do not want to hear me speak
I will go down with this ship
I will try to lift myself from these depths
You read poetry
By the seashore while you waited
For me to resurface
I am so alive/fully submerged
Too much mess and destruction to come back again
Call this
Narcissism
I will not save myself
Saving is only for the drowning
Not the drowned
Past tense

*Italicized lines are quotes from the song White Flag by Dido


2. Sleeping Beauty and Snow White Learn How to Kiss

Do you think I can’t speak—hush
I did not ask for your lips
Unannounced
—bluster blush
Uninvited
Pushing at my own in urgency
For my sake or yours
Refuse us and you die—pulling
Die and we are refuse
Detritus in the wind above this dark scene

White lips
Red skin—not now
Black eyes—never
Blue hair—perfect

My final disguise

Dress me in pale pink
Spindle at my bedside—wavering
Roses choke and bind
This night

Is it flattery or is it dehumanization to be awakened on the basis of my uncommonly symmetrical face and evenly proportioned body?

Pressed your lips against me
Spoke in my nightmare
No
Brought me to the altar with lead sewn in my hem
Banish me from my floating world
Dream

We hold each other
Without you
We kiss
Without you









A world
Without you—whole


3. Cinderella Meets with her Biographer

Here
I saved that headstone for you
Would you like a seat
I am more comfortable with my toes in this void
Freshly dug
How do you want the world to remember you?
Make me immortal, a mysticism
Cast me upon the waves as the Argo
Coerce the stars
To make my shape
In eternity
But I know you can’t do that

Do you have the slipper?
In a corner of that castle I can’t recall
Where or how I dropped it
The day after the wedding
The day after he threw me out
The day after the divorce
The day after the funeral
The day after I ran
My story belongs to you in every way/shape/form

I take out an apple peeler
Here
As I slide the blade between my epidermis and
The muscles in my arm
Carving off what belongs to me
I want you to write my story on this
My shroud my dress my slipper recycle
But your ink
I need you to write my story
Truer than a thousand retelling tales
Why can’t you write it?
There is no one else who knows

No one will listen me
You will only believe in fairytales

Until cynicism
Writes your own

Exhume me
If only for yourself