Adreyo Sen- A Poem

A Fairy Tale

When I was young I was in love
with the Fancy in my mind,
I spun it into castles
for my stories to live in.

Older, I learnt to fear my Fancy,
it pushed out everything else,
no more had my stories happy endings,
they perished at Fancy's edge.
I was unhappy myself.

I tried to read, but darkness lurked
on every second page.
The protagonists stalked by Fancy's eyes
terrified me with their rage.

I took to walking,
but dreams followed me and so,
I never saw the trees,
nor the plaintive beauty
in a solitary autumn leaf.

In my sleep, I was pursued
and then sleep gave up on me.

I was a slave in my mind's castles,
the captive Fancy could not corrupt,
Fancy sought me for its bride
and plundered me when I demurred.

Imprisoned thus for ever so long,
I became a silent shell
and thus no one knew me.

I sought amnesty with the sun,
it was cold upon my thoughts,
even the rain could not reach me.

And so one day in forlorn walk,
I came by a water pump.
In its frenzied jets,
children danced.

Pretty they were, but it wasn't them
who took my saddened eye,
it was the young man by the pump
whose steady hands
made it a thing of joy.

He smiled at me and so I thought,
perhaps he was my Prince Charming,
my rescuer so fair.

But he wasn't Prince Charming,
or a magician in disguise,
he was, better still,
a gardener who knew to look in weeds,
for the slenderness of a fern.

With a look I gave him me,
and he held all I was,
and under his steady gaze,
against his warm, loving pulse,
I felt my Fancy fall in place,
a beast tamed and shorn
of its wild curls.

He placed my castles in the sun,
its strange goblins fled,
and its beautiful secrets emerged
and began to dance.

And while the world marveled at their beauty,
I was no more than a plain girl
with nothing left to give
but the strange silence in my heart.

He took my arm and by his side,
I walked, and finally,
I felt the sun.