Before

Magazine covers of white dresses in lush green parks

I stared at everything wondering

Trailed by plucked petals of sacrificial plant life

Why I couldn’t seem to have

While family and friends and frienemies clapped

The lovely life

And they cried and cheered in unison and I do my damsel in distress

Routine I had been practicing, Wave smile wink wave

Allegories perpetuated in my midst, fables limericks, haiku-

The princess finally gets saved

By the perfect Ken Doll Mannequin man who doesn’t speak just listens and shells out cash
then I realized I was getting
exactly what I was asking for you can’t ask for fantasy in reality it will collapse the whole time space continuum for one person to live on the outskirts of truth and they aren’t on mushrooms or acid
so I stopped expecting
anything and everything
to be more fantastic
than what I could see
in my minds eye and when I opened both of them at the same time I really saw you.

Imperfect and not quite tall enough and not quite straight enough and a bit too lazy but so funny, so terribly funny and when you touch my hand it feels like a safety net
I lost you once on the edge of escapism pretending some fable could free me
and in that desperation
I lost me hating that I couldn’t get my doughnut scarfing ass into that tiny white pearl buttoned dress
Now peeling back
the layers of compromise
I have a new vision of us
we are connected
and beauty is not outside my grasp
I design it
with my joy every day with you anew
now I stare at everything wondering
how lucky I must be to listen to you snore in the morning and hog the covers.

How lucky I must be to simply exist.