The only thing growing up taught me is that there is no Fairy Tale more unrealistic than Beauty and the Beast. Turns out in real life saviors and gentle souls don't go out looking for enchanted castles to dig through the damage to find the royalty within.
People don't fall in love with monsters unless their visage is already beautiful, and I am still caught in my curse, petals running in short supply, no Belle of any type in sight. No hope for a Beast, broken, battered and bruised.Â
Hope is as cruel as she is kind, but she's never much cared for me, doesn't like the way my breath catches when she flashes a smile, so I'm more than a little scarred from her double edged nature.Â
Turns out, kids, wishes lose potency if you make too many, and there were a lot of years where I wished every night for the pain to end.Â
Now my wishes have no power to get up off the ground, they just sputter out and die a sad death.Â
Where does that leave me now, anyway?
I guess if hell isn't a place you go to, it must be something that lives writhing in your chest, and I'm exactly where I've always been.Â
A cursed girl turned beast, too far gone to save, count down to destruction in three, two...
One last wish, sent on a deathbed whisper, 'teach me what happily ever after feels like.'
Don't need to keep it, I'm not greedy.
Just desperate to feel anything but this.Â
See? I'd take a glass slipper, tower high, or spindle needle any time. Give me sea witches, wolves, or huntsmen.Â
Instead I'm wasting away in a broken down and cursed castle, the Beast unredeemed.
Fairy Tales in Real Life // a.e.j.a.
