Today we debut a poetic piece by Afra Atiq for this month’s theme “The wait” expressing her thoughts on how sometimes women need to wait for men to come and save them. Happy Reading
I grew up with fairy tales
Sang songs with Cinderella
About the better life
Believed that someday my prince
will come with Snow White
I fell in love with Prince Eric
the very first time
I saw him in the on that ship
My heart fluttered with Pocahontas
Seeing John Smith
For the first time
These character’s lives unfolded
Along side mine
For the longest time
I felt like I knew who
They all were inside
Their problems, their losses
Their battles, their successes
Were not only theirs
But also mine
But even fairy tales come with a price
I developed this mentality that every time I needed to be rescued
A prince would save me
But not just help me out
Kind of save me
I’m talking about
The epic kind of save me
The destroy-the-demons-kind-of-save-me
The greatest battle of all time
then ride off into the sunset
kind of save me
In fact, I was so convinced
that the first time a prince didn’t
Come to save me
I told myself that his horse
took him the wrong way
Days came & days went
But still I waited
Months came & months went
Still no prince in sight
No rescuing me from my plight
Years came & years went
But I still waited
And waited
And waited some more
Until I finally realized
That I lost more than time
In that instance
I lost myself waiting for that prince
I believed in fairy tale endings
Only good things impending
Yellow brick roads to lead me home
Castles, crows, daytime adventures
And storybook sunsets
In everyone of those things I believed
Yeah I guess I was
Pretty freaking naïve
I thought every man was a Prince Philip or a John Smith
I thought men were
Supposed to be
Rushing in to save me
Dashing, daring, escaping
The clutches of doom
Without so much a scratch
But it wasn’t easy
Realizing this
I must be the first to admit
It was tough
Seeing that I wasn’t in a fairy tale land of magic bean stalks
And animals that talk
But how else would I realize
that I didn’t need to compromise
Myself waiting for a prince’s help
All I ever needed was a little ambition and refusal to let any opposition
Steer me in the wrong direction
Because the wait is over
I realize now that the wait is over
Society and fairy tales
Have tried to teach women
That we are helpless
Powerless without a man
Without a prince
Because even fairy tales
Come with a price
But this time the odds have changed
And I’ve changed the whole game plan
They say time waits for no man
Well I say this woman needs no man, she can save herself
I love this! It’s so fantastic. I like how you brought childhood into this, I never expected this would be a poem about oppressing and fooling women. Mind blew me