There lived a girl in the forest, her blood as dark and as thick as molasses, her voice as loud and as clear and as beauitful as a bell. When the huntsman sliced her open, her blood congealed in the hole he left in her chest, a scab as substantial as the heart he had stolen, and much more precious, for what worth is a heart ripped free from the warmth that sustains it, the love that makes it beat, beat, beat.
For years afterwards she would dream of the queen in the castle, her lips black with blood, her teeth feasting on the flesh of her heart. She would dream of the meat and gristle of it catching in the Queen’s throat, choking her dead in the vast palace hall as her guests watched on, the embarrassment of it all as great as the pain, each final choking cry quieter than the last, until finally they just stop.
The dream was all the revenge the girl ever sought, all the revenge she ever needed, all the revenge she would ever get. And in her chest her scabbed-up fairy tale heart beat on, as defiant as any made of flesh, as loud and as clear and as beautiful as any drum, more vital than any of the real hearts hidden beneath the brittle rib cages of the powerful, and the cruel, and all those others who remain silent enough to sustain them.
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Notes:
1. Written on April 1st, 2019
2. This originally had slightly irregular formatting
3. on the last few words of each paragraph
4. But this wordpress theme can’t seem to cope with that
5. so it’s all gone