Solid Ground
My family took my voice
long before any sea-witch offered.
The song that reached their ears
from my lips was their own.


If the ocean was my oyster,
I a pearl from a grain of sand,
then my world was no larger
than the margins of that speckled shell.


Age equaled freedom
five sisters equaled five years
biding time amongst the barnacles.

But every crumb of gossip
collected from their
table
did not prepare me for anything.


The sky as wide as childhood
crushing down on the roof
of my ocean, the rough grain
of wind across my salt-smoothed cheek
and the queer vessels of men
which move only forward, only back
and I marveled at their
lack of dimensions.

They will say it was
the prince
that stole me away from my watery home.

When they write my story
it will tell of how my eyes
found his face, his broad
archetypal form
and felt the stirrings of love in
my gut
Tendrils of longing
snaking through my limbs
like strands of kelp

What churned up love like silt
in the river of my mind
was the lure of a world
that could be mine
apart from the weight
of family

What I longed for
was brittle and sweet
the push and pull
of gravity and earth
As I danced in my shoes of
blood and steel
I laughed—
     a laugh in silence
     which was only my own

Okay okay, technically this is a rework of a poem I wrote about 5 (FIVE???) years ago in a poetry class in university, but it fit the fairytale prompt and I think a rewrite is okay once in a while. Plus I'm super proud of it. :D