Andrews McMeel Publishing

i’m dousing

my fire.

i’m dropping

my sword.

i’m melting

my crown.

i’m destroying

my castle

& then i’m

hurling it

straight

into that

perilous

sea.

all

this time,

i thought

myself

a motherfucking

queen,

&

only now

am i

realizing

that it was

all make-believe.

in one of our many worlds existed a girl who couldn’t handle how very sad & confusing life could be, so she approached one of her many overstuffed bookshelves, got up on her tippy-toes, & pleaded to the dozens of warped & well-loved spines, “i want nothing more in this world than to be one of you.” miraculously, the books listened. they more than listened. from that day on, they took her in & raised her as one of their own. each night while she was supposed to be sleeping, the girl’s new family scribbled her into fairy tales about princesses & witches & even her favorite fantastical creature: mermaids.

in a distant land . . .

sometimes

she cannot

tell the

difference

between

the days

she’s walked

this earth

as herself

&

the days

she’s walked

through paragraphs

as someone else.