This is the story I’m still trying to amend,

The poem I attempt to remember.

The one where there’s a definitive end

Which finishes happy ever after.

 

Somewhere along the journey we fought

Against not alongside each other,

We should have been battling with ogres

but instead we punched one another.

 

We might have defeated the slavering wolf,

Feasted on porridge of apocryphal flavour,

The sour bitten apple that choked us could have

been kissed away with a Heimlich manoeuvre.

 

Even wilting Wendy saw through Peter Pan,

But Alice Fitzwarren got married to Dick,

and Sleeping Beauty with 18 years warning

Couldn’t avoid the inevitable prick.

 

I hung my own millstone around my own neck,

And stepped inside my own witches oven,

Don’t get me started on the snogging of frogs,

Or whimsical beheading of huntsmen.

 

If only I’d just once let down my hair,

If I’d not lied about spinning gold skeins,

If I’d stopped trying to force on the slipper

If I’d not taken such fantastic pains

 

To ... well, to try to become the ultimate swan,

To hide Pinocchio’s protuberant nose,

To pretend it all started with once upon,

But didn’t end up under a rose.