My brother once told me,

Disney movies trick us
They lie to us.
Now I tell my children
Every good Disney movie needs a bully
and a rebel,
one who is completely normal
in a judgemental school
clutching their high school sweetheart’s hand
Unsure if they’ll stay together,
but we all know she will.

Their parents are happy.
They’ve been living in the suburbs
since 3 years old.
Every day the kitchen smelled of
food made from scratch,
never canned.
They didn’t have any problems of their own
Troy Bolton is his name.
With hair like a bowl
and eyes like Cinderella’s dress
He was as happy as Snow White
after waking from her slumber.
They lie to us.

The Evil Queen returned
He was tormented by this fact
He had the gift of singing
The way he sang a song made
the lyrics linger in one’s mouth like
bitter dark chocolate
He wanted to be in a musical.
Troy can’t get his head in the game.
The basketball he so proudly held before
now feels like it is covered in thumb tacks.
He says he’s fine but,
the ball says otherwise
Troy passes, pushes, pounds
his way through but nothing works
His father was boiling mad.
It was the perfect mistake.
His friends eventually accepted him
It was a perfect fairy tale ending.
They lie to us.
In real life,
a boy that enjoys musicals is a boy.
No one wants to be with friends.
The reality of high school
is the piercing volume
the alarm clocks emits five mornings a week