I used to think of fairy tales as childish stories with little bearing on real life. It wasn’t until I took a fairy tale class in college that I actually sat down to really read them. During this class, I rediscovered these tales and found that they had a lot to say about the human experience. We analyzed these stories in class, but I wanted to go a step further. I wanted to read my own world as literature, to analyze my life through the lens of fairy tales. This poetry-photography project explores the topics of self-love, faith, and change through “Snow White,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and “Hansel and Gretel.”
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my mirror
we were reading Snow White
and you talked about the importance of mirrors
how powerful they were
dangerous even
you said, maybe in jest, that we couldn’t look in the mirror
for ten minutes
a measly ten minutes
that we would be overcome with existential crises
and have to look away,
defeated
well, I, having dealt with
plenty of existential crises already
wanted to prove you wrong
and so I sat down
in front of my bedroom door
on which hangs a mirror
and stared into it
and for a while
there was nothing to it
I couldn’t understand why the Queen
loved her mirror so
but then I looked closer
and I could see my skin in relief
all the pores
the way it breathed
the way the light hit upon it
a surface like a planet
and I was struck
that
it was
beautiful
and I realized
that I had not yet ever had the opportunity
to lie down
and to look upon someone else’s face
their skin
so up close
so intimate
so loving
and I thought of the old Queen
who married for the kingdom
and though beautiful
was not loved
and how she
no longer had the opportunity
to look at anyone so close
like she was looking at herself
and I thought of us
so young and so old
one before her time
and one after
and how we were really in the same place
staring at the mirror
but really
staring at ourselves
loving ourselves
safe, and warm, and wonderful
and before I knew it
ten minutes had passed
and I had never looked away.
burnt spindles
after hearing the fairy’s curse,
Briar Rose’s mother and father
burned all the spindles in the kingdom
still
at the appointed time
Briar found the last, forgotten one
and fell asleep
anyway
why bother
burning the spindles at all?
it reminds me of my own
mother and father,
Christians,
one a convert during a severe illness,
the other third generation
but solidified after a mystical experience
they raised me and my kid sister
as serious Christians:
we went to church every week,
not like those Christmas-and-Easter-only types
I prayed
I believed
I even tithed
and I sacrificed
(maybe now I would say repressed)
parts of myself for the Faith
but I was never so sure that I heard the voice of God,
like my parents were,
and I would pray every night
to know him better
to have a real relationship with him
and when nothing came,
I figured it was my fault
eventually I went to college
learned more
and opened myself up to the world
and after much trepidation
allowed myself to finally
question my Faith
in good faith,
letting myself be honestly led
wherever the answers would take me
so the college student returns home
like many others
having shed their belief
though freeing for me
it must’ve been a bitter loss for my parents
who had to feel like the king and queen
when Briar found the spindle anyway
then I looked at my sister,
who after hearing my story
agreed she could not answer my questions
but said that she knew she could
trust God
despite her doubts
and that was assuring enough for her
and I couldn’t help
but see myself,
who would’ve said the same thing
in her place
and I thought it likely
that she would eventually
take the same path as me
and I thought of my parents
and Briar’s, thinking to themselves:
if we had done it all differently,
maybe it would have still turned out the same.
little bit of color
out of food
Hansel and Gretel’s parents
forced them out of the house
hearing that as a child
was strangely comforting
to know there was another in the world
that had to leave home
just like me
you see
my family had moved six times
by the time I was nine
but I had my own trail of breadcrumbs
for by 13
I had been living in Missouri
for five years
the longest I had ever lived anywhere
my dad had found his dream job
and my parents said we were going to stay
but things change
and dreams don’t turn out as well as you think
the birds swoop in
and we were moving again
to California
like the fairy tale children
trials came upon me
but my hungry witch was
sitting alone at lunch
or with people that didn’t see me
and not knowing what to do with myself
but in the story
the witch was defeated
and the children found the treasure
and strangely enough
I did too
moving allowed me
to reinvent myself
I learned how to be happy
I made wonderful friends
I think of all the things that have happened
the great, life-changing things
and I couldn’t see them happening
if I had stayed in Missouri
I don’t know how Hansel and Gretel felt
arriving at their happily ever after
but I was confused
what does it mean
that California was so good for me?
does it mean
my moving was good?
how could it be?
I was so angry at my parents for moving
I felt they betrayed me
how could it have turned out for good?
whenever people would ask me
if I liked Missouri or California better
I would always answer Missouri
maybe to spite my parents
but also because it was my home
and I loved it
and I missed it
but I was no longer so sure that my answer was true
and what did that mean
was I betraying myself?
you see
back then I was stuck in fairytale logic
black and white
where dragons were evil, and princes were heroes
princesses were loving, and witches were terrible
and that was that
California had to be good
and Missouri bad
or vice versa
and moving had to be good or bad and nothing in between
