from Rapunzel
Here’s one for the seed your father planted
and two for the baby it grew
three four and five for those simple years -
a game, a story, a tucked-in dream.
Ten for the girl you became.
Twelve for the woman I saw
shadow her younger self.
Thirteen for the daughter they stole.
He bargained for my life
but each day death inches in.
I’m a soundless bell
a leafless tree
a fire with no flame.
When he reaches for me
his hands come away
charred to the bone.
Here’s ninety-nine for love
one hundred for hate –
I burn both of us up.
This poem is one of a sequence, retelling the Rapunzel fairstory. This is part of a libretto for which Matt Ottley is composing the music. This poem occurs after Rapunzel has been given away to Mother Gothel. Rapunzel's birth mother is mad with grief, she's built a shrine to Rapunzel and she sits by it, brushing imaginary hair.
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