In dreams,
the carriage stops often
at our front door,
and this woman—
Ella’s stepmother,
and every woman—
thrusts the shoe
into my hands,
curls my fingers
around the sole,
and tells me with her eyes
what she expects of me.
I am not my sister,
not the soot-coated girl
who rode magic
to the ball,
swept the prince up
in her smile.
But I will try to be:
weave my hair
into braids
and layer my skirts,
pretend I want
his ring on my finger,
and his tongue in my mouth,
squeeze my toes
into that dainty slipper.
My foot is
too long, too wide;
this is not
a censored fairy tale,
my mother bares her teeth,
takes a knife to my heel.
How many hours
have I spent
moaning in my sleep,
slicing off parts of myself,
trying to force
my bloody foot
into that slipper of gold?
Elizabeth Anne Schwartz (she/her) earned her BA in Creative Writing at Purchase College. She has work featured or forthcoming in The Lovers Literary Journal, Tension Literary, and Beyond Queer Words, among others. Her poetry chapbook, Nine Stages of Coming Out, is forthcoming from tiny wren lit. Visit her website at elizabethanneschwartz.carrd.co/
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