Danielle Perry
a girl who cannot become a princess is doomed to become a witch
after Revolutionary Girl Utena
there is a sword piercing my palms &
i can hear the others circling, waiting
to sheathe themselves in my flesh (again)
(he says i am a willing sacrifice
and this is almost true / i was, once,
but no more / it is he & not
the swords that killed me)
you refuse to believe in anything
but the best in me & for that i will always
love you / i hope i get the chance to tell you
(my old refrain: no one ever chooses
the witch in the end / but that’s not right,
because you did, it’s just that in the end
i am still alone, still wandering, still a witch)
i wanted to be a princess, once, golden
and good like all the stories / but i learned
that life was not for me, betrayer/liar/whore
(but those are his words, not mine, even if
i feel like they have been branded onto my skin,
even if i feel like my skin is just a collection of wounds)
you say my name and time stops / you say
my name and i am crying / you say nothing
and i am free, finally, and i promise you this:
i will find you, my love, my prince
after Revolutionary Girl Utena
there is a sword piercing my palms &
i can hear the others circling, waiting
to sheathe themselves in my flesh (again)
(he says i am a willing sacrifice
and this is almost true / i was, once,
but no more / it is he & not
the swords that killed me)
you refuse to believe in anything
but the best in me & for that i will always
love you / i hope i get the chance to tell you
(my old refrain: no one ever chooses
the witch in the end / but that’s not right,
because you did, it’s just that in the end
i am still alone, still wandering, still a witch)
i wanted to be a princess, once, golden
and good like all the stories / but i learned
that life was not for me, betrayer/liar/whore
(but those are his words, not mine, even if
i feel like they have been branded onto my skin,
even if i feel like my skin is just a collection of wounds)
you say my name and time stops / you say
my name and i am crying / you say nothing
and i am free, finally, and i promise you this:
i will find you, my love, my prince
unfinished business
for sally j. johnson
sometimes i am surprised it took us this long to get here
our fists saying what our words never could
we will never be married / this is what marriage really is
foreheads pressed together & i can smell your blood
when i stood & shouted KARA THRACE LOVES
LEE ADAMA into the air / it’s not that it wasn’t true
it’s just that i don’t know what to do with the broken
pieces of me / except hurt, except bleed, except fly
i have held this aggression in my body my whole life
and this - not even this will loose it from my bones
(i press my fingers into every bruise i have
because i like the way they stain my skin &
because i like the pain / the reminder of pain
it tells me what i can handle, i can handle this)
when you won’t let me go it feels like a trap
when we collapse in the ring it feels like relief
things are more complicated now that we’ve done this
but let’s be honest, they were never not-complicated
for sally j. johnson
sometimes i am surprised it took us this long to get here
our fists saying what our words never could
we will never be married / this is what marriage really is
foreheads pressed together & i can smell your blood
when i stood & shouted KARA THRACE LOVES
LEE ADAMA into the air / it’s not that it wasn’t true
it’s just that i don’t know what to do with the broken
pieces of me / except hurt, except bleed, except fly
i have held this aggression in my body my whole life
and this - not even this will loose it from my bones
(i press my fingers into every bruise i have
because i like the way they stain my skin &
because i like the pain / the reminder of pain
it tells me what i can handle, i can handle this)
when you won’t let me go it feels like a trap
when we collapse in the ring it feels like relief
things are more complicated now that we’ve done this
but let’s be honest, they were never not-complicated
Danielle Perry graduated with a degree in Religious Studies and English Literature from Guilford College in North Carolina. Her first stories were Star Trek-inspired and she still loves writing about pop culture in poems and essays. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Toast, Voicemail Poems, FLAPPERHOUSE, Luna Station Quarterly, and Cool Skull Press, among others. She spends probably too much time on Twitter (@jekyllian).