she wasn't sleeping

she wasn't sleeping

she was downtown,
eating sushi and
drinking cocktails

her hands sparkled
with borrowed diamonds,
her hair shone with the
sheen of freedom

Maleficent in her tower
stuffed envelopes for
charity, sharpened her horns
with sorrow,

bitter tears lining the
hallways of her dreams,
dreams littered with
godmothers,
fat on their own
regrets

and all the while our girl bloomed
in strange men's beds,
each man a notch in her belt,
a thorn in her soul,
each prick a little different

a prince, somewhere, loomed on the
edge of the horizon,
kept at bay by a
blood-red dream

while there
in the palace,
beneath the bedsheets,
a pile of clothes
in the shape of our girl
slept