A dream?
Is that what this is to you?
Because I thought it was a fairytale.
The only difference is
That there isn’t gonna be
A happy ending
That leaves butterflies
In your daughter’s stomach
And hopes that, one day,
She will marry a prince
As great as her daddy,
Because she’s too innocent
And clueless to know the truth -

That the only thing Cinderella ever cleaned
Were the blood stains off the floor
Left there over night
From when Prince Charming broke her heart
By returning her glass slipper.
(Which she then put on,
With its mate,
And proceeded to kick his ass,
Stomp on his insanely gorgeous face,
And strut away –
Click, click, click.)

Snow White was secretly in love
With all seven dwarfs
So when her prince came to save her,
She had her army of animal friends attack him.
(Meanwhile,
She went to the castle,
Murdered the queen,
And stole her mirror
And a poisoned apple.)
For a few days,
She kept the prince in quarantine,
To starve him.
Then,
She forced a bite of poisoned apple down his throat,
Kissed him,
And as he was dying,
She whispered, “All is fair in love and war.”

Jasmine was the one
That rubbed the magic lamp
And made three wishes:
1) To have her belly-button pierced,
2) To get a tramp-stamp of bags of money and gold
And 3) To have her magic carpet redesigned by “Pimp My Ride”.
(After she stole it from Aladdin,
The beautiful Arabian
With the simply breath-taking abs.)

Rapunzel
Just used her prince
To escape from her tower.
Once she was free,
She locked him in the tower with her “Mother”
After giving herself a very flattering short hair cut with layers,
And making a rope out of it
And tying them together –
Face to face.
(And she didn’t think twice about hiring a wrecking ball either.)

As for me,
I wouldn’t dare to think about doing something as sweet as what the others did,
But perhaps something better.
I will teach my daughter
To follow her heart,
But not too closely,
That falling in love is okay,
But falling out of love is hard,
And when she comes home cryin’
Askin’ me “Mama, how’d you know?’
I’ll just smile and say, “I told you so.”
Then,
I’ll take her to the store
And buy her a few cartons of ice cream,
Even if it’s 3:00 in the morning.
That’s when she’ll learn that ice cream can cure anything.
I will teach her that she doesn’t need a knight-in-shining-armor
To come save her,
Because she has me.
When she starts lookin’ for a prince,
I’ll tell her, “The one you keep is the one that reminds you of your daddy.”
Because her daddy will be a great father,
Always treating her like the princess she is,
And a great husband,
Treatin’ her mama
Like a queen.
Most importantly,
I’ll teach her that,
Just because it’s called a “kingdom”
Doesn’t mean you have to have a king,
But, if you happen to have a king,
Make sure he treats you like a queen.