Lies My Father Told Me.

I'm not sure if I want to turn this into a short story or maybe an longer more succint poem?

Drowned in youth

With teenage warnings

 Everything can fall to pieces

Out on the edge you rope me back in

Block the window and turn on the t.v.

She can’t break now.

 

Chipping and searching the open door

Creaks and beckons a run

Slam it shut, missing baby fingers

She can’t fall now.

 

Pillow soft whispers telling tales of hard lives

And thankless work, princes are thieves endings

Aren’t always happy, carpets won’t fly; But yes Angel,

 you can wish on a star.

She’ll sleep soundly now.

 

Cocooned in an embrace her wings unfurl

They meet the silent reigns of the cage too delicate to see

Unknown; too late to feel a silk as strong as steel

 

Gazing across a kingdom glow; she belongs to this earth

This ground is hers, it nurtures and grows for her to use

But she can’t see, it feels dead under her feet, stifled of natural ingredients

No indulgence to leave its mark, the ground feels dead and cold

Other grass is brittle; it’ll cut your toe sweetie

She’s heard it before, come inside

Bolt the door and play cards instead.

 

These stories I’ve heard, these stories have bred me

They provide no comfort for ears long grown

They rot and fall away what can be done

Seventeen is a dangerous age

 

No more looking, no more staring no dreams or wishes to

Save her now, calling and wishing has brought no knight so alone

The modern tale must fight, scoping the home that filled such tales

With guarded edges she must test, can the spell be broken or will her carriage

Turn to fodder as warned?

 

Drowned in youth she must escape

With teenage warnings she tried to help

them understand her pain but they cannot see

Her foe must be met; with a ribbon she threads her argument around the

Cocoon, challenging the grip of cold steel

She enters the labyrinth of lies demanding to test the toads for herself

She checks her line, secure.  A gold glint catches her eye, Facing the beast of the middle she doesn’t she how familiar its distorted shape is, how reticent its stature, ready for its riddle, its unnerving cool, she steps.

 

Exhausted and battered, weary and drained but exalted she retreats. She waits for hours she wills it to speak the monster of her nightmares stalking her room and challenging her dreams to see the reality of the world

Seventeen is such a dangerous age, She follows Aurora’s path she has spilled her own blood and stands firm in her consequences. 

The challenge has been laid down; the next move lies with the other.

She knows this may break her.

 

Days, weeks she lies in rank agony with the monster in her world it makes no reply

It ponders her riddle how can she leave and stay? To save her wings from being crushed must she break the cocoon?  Too much destruction. 

The heaving beast towers towards her, the glint of its eye solid, concise in its direction she can feel the hot breath bearing down on her

Why had she engaged it, is the extension of a limb worth the destruction of her kingdom

Panicked she feels small as it traces her scent back to room.  It has found her.

 

Standing she feels her breath gain a little stronger she knows the end has arrive. Reckoning is here but she is ready, she called the maligned animal on its charge and is ready to be defeated not  for herself but for the two that follow.

She opens the door and falls.

 

Gazing, startled she looks closely at the face behind her door

The beast is dead, the Minotaur face is placid, the thundering

hooves and oxen strength arms are laid to rest.  She gazes at the eyes

 carrying the beast to her door, she sees a familiar curve at the

 mouth of her rescuer, no more looking at a snarling sneer

 a hand takes hers in his and presents the ribbons that lead him home.

 

She looks at the faces around her now, no more alone; no more afraid she is surrounded by faces all alike in eyes and mouth, gentle and tender.  She sees now for who they are

Gazing at the floor her broken pieces lay on top of the beast, confused she feels who

How can I break and still be me?

 

The faces push her back into her room and close the door

Opening the window to let fresh air in, seventeen is a dangerous age

And the world is a dangerous place, fiddling with the man’s cufflinks she recalls noticing their first glint how threatening, how scared.  Now she sees them simply. 

Not a call to gaze at strong arms or menacing airs but plain things, simple in their means.  Solid and strong with one desire to protect the wearer from open edges, unseemly looks from flapping cloth, laughable. now, she agrees, she knows

she has killed the demon of her dreams but she never realised that the man who would provided her the means of rescue was the creature himself.

She is broken; herself and her constraints lie around her in tatters

But she remains whole; the beast never was and never shall be seen again in her eyes

 

She sleeps in gossamer whispers delicate and frail they may break at any moment, but she will crack no-more, seventeen is a dangerous age and now papa she knows that when the world is dark and the edges are hard you will be the beast again patrolling the door, not to keep her in but to keep the bad things out.

She can sleep safely now.

Author's Note

what do you think of the emotionof the piece? Is it obvious or am I rambling I'm a real novice with poetry no sure how best to lay it out any suggestions?