Fairy Tale | Teen Ink

Fairy Tale

April 11, 2014
By BandGeekAndProud PLATINUM, Burlington, Massachusetts
BandGeekAndProud PLATINUM, Burlington, Massachusetts
23 articles 0 photos 49 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;Imagination is more important than knowledge.&quot;<br /> Albert Einstein


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.


The author's comments:
Trigger warning for eating disorders and self harm.

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This article has 2 comments.


on Sep. 26 2014 at 10:04 pm
beAWESOMEstayAWESOME BRONZE, New York City, New York
3 articles 0 photos 133 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;Work hard in silence and let your accomplishments make the noise.&quot;

This is a very unique perpective on princess stories and heroes. I like it, and look forward to more.

JRaye PLATINUM said...
on Apr. 20 2014 at 7:01 pm
JRaye PLATINUM, Dorr, Michigan
43 articles 10 photos 523 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;If you build your house far enough away from Trouble, then Trouble will never find you.&quot;<br /> <br /> &quot;Have you ever looked fear in the face and said, &#039;I just don&#039;t care.&#039;?&quot;

I like this - feel like you could've broken it up into shorter stantzas, but other than that your vocabulary was nice and simple, your message clear, and overall I really liked it :)