this old storybook

The pages

of the old storybook

(you know the one, with its gilded cover depicting

the never-changing silvery palace

set against the sunset

and the handsome blond prince

with his shining armor, pedigree horse, and 

jewel-encrusted sword

raised high in his attempt to ward off dragons

and other monsters who might try to steal his princess)

are frayed at the edges.

They are ancient,

their corners are torn and dog-eared,

page 120 ripped in half, reading like a warping wormhole,

and its counterpart, 121, is stained right down the middle with a yellowing splash that might have been coffee,

once upon a time.

The words splayed across its damaged pages,

describing the weak, long-haired princesses

patiently sitting in their ivory towers,

peering out the single crack in the thickly packed bricks and mortar,

awaiting inevitable rescue from their princes,

are worthless now.

They tell of tales long gone by,

their characters dead and rotting in their graves, so long ago that

even the great-great-grandchildren of the heroic princes

cannot remember the times when they would sit with this storybook

and read eagerly, feverishly, from the then-crisp, then-true pages.

The pages

of the old storybook

(you know the one, with its pages and gilded cover full of lies

told to little girls to make them believe

that learning to please please men, only to please men so young, that wearing corsets and stays and petticoats

and other items of torture devised to make tiny waists and stiff backs and perfect circular dress flounces

was really just so they could grow up

and have the tiniest little chance to sit in an ivory tower and get rescued by a prince;

lies told to little boys to make them believe

that crying, playing with girls or little boys, feeling anything at all 

was unacceptable

because they had to be the golden-haired prince in shining armor

for their whole lives

for the tiniest little chance that they would grow up and marry a princess)

are frayed at the edges.

The pages of the old storybook

are outdated now.

The pages of the old storybook

are lies.