“Once upon a times
and happy endings
are for dreamers
much too clean”
she said
she preferred life messy
and dramatic, looped where
most preferred straight lines
because “the truth,” she said
“is most are lost anyway
and only pretending that the
by-line was authored in smiles
and sunshine
the subtext and addendum hidden
deeply within themselves
and they are miserable”
“Well I,” she said, “know Life,
and for the record,
she is one bitch
who expects no platitudes
or compliments
and will give none.
Life expects only that you dig in,
get dirty and learn that in the muck, the mire…the messy places…
You find yourself.
Fuck the fairy tale,” she said.
“It’s a lie. Don’t search for
neatly written and lovely words,
the alignment of the stars,
the magical fix…
All these things are far
from where you really need to be and certainly aren’t realistic
or obtainable and when you miss the mark where do you land?
In the same stubborn place
as all the other fools
who live in the illusion of perfection
that the fairy tale dreamers sell.”
“You see,” she said, “with a fire in her eyes that spoke truth,
“in that indeterminable amount of mess and flaws and imperfection, those who really look beyond the chaos and see
with seeing eyes,
find perfection they had searched for
all along.”