A Fable

A Fable

Tell me if you know the tale
of a princess delicate, young and frail
cursed to sleep until love prevails
where true love wins the chapter?
Haven’t you heard of the ancient fable
a lonely servant girl who’s able
to become a princess and turn the tables
and live happily ever after?
 

And can you recall a maiden fair
with crystal eyes and golden hair
who marries into royal care
where true love’s kiss ends the chapter?
Yet on one’s mind it does perplex
some fault in this story’s ancient text
for what to the princess happens next
after happily ever after?

For girls with heartbreak’s mournful tears
and women haunted by the fears
of loneliness all through the years
do question this last chapter.
Oh who could have a heart so cold
to deliver a lie so cruel and old
for still young girls are often told
they’ll live happily ever after.

And what of those who knew the pain
of fictional princes who never came
who lost the love they sought to gain
do they burn the pages of that last chapter?
For how does the real girl’s story end
trapped in a world that loves to pretend
that love will prevail, the heart will mend
deceived by ‘happily ever after’

Should Snow White’s prince forget to come by
in her glass coffin, would still she lie?
Or would she spit out the apple and cry
‘’I’m sick of this last chapter!’
Would sleeping beauty remain at rest
would Cinderella get to keep her dress?
It all seems rather foolish; I confess
this notion of ‘happily ever after’.
 

Yet there’s truth in this tale after all
for a curse is upon us, one and all
we blindly and foolishly continue to fall
in love with that last chapter.
And as the world continues to turn
there’ll be those of us who never learn
that affections do not always return
that some girls do not get their ‘happily ever after’.