Tag Archives: Twisted fairy tales

The Changeling

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The Changeling 

At heart I am a changeling, born of fairy stuff.
Reality and daily life simply are not enough.
I yearn for the forest, the valley or the ness.
The only place where I’m content is the wilderness.

And though siblings are rosy and love to laugh and shout,
frolicking like puppies as they roll about,
my skin is wan and pallid and I do not care to play,
keeping mortal company constantly at bay.

Faux parents can’t facilitate my raging appetite,
nor my predilection for the deepest night.
I was born of different stock, unsatisfied and mean,
preferring solitary life, untouched and pristine.

And though I petition that I be let alone,
those who come upon me, alas, are often prone
to try to draw me out, an act that I rebuff,
for I find myself to be company enough.

Somewhere in the forest, in a cavern or a tree,
I know that there resides the opposite of me,
living far away from the place where they were born,
dreaming of the family that they miss and mourn.

Two unhappy doppelgangers, always just off-mark.
One languishes in daylight, the other in the dark.
We stand before a funhouse mirror and without a doubt,
One is looking into it, the other looking out.

While somewhere in the vast lost world, parental arms are aching
for the child that long ago was of their dual making.
What evil force declared that both sets of parents should pine
for the natural-born child each yearns to claim as “mine?”

Those who seek disruption wander through our life,
seeking to take action that cuts us like a knife.
War and rape and pestilence, disorder and melee,
substituting one child and taking one away.

What more brutal action than this cruel deflection
that subverts two tiny lives, causing lifelong dejection?
The human-born and changeling, forced into different lives.
A honeybee and hornet forced into warring hives.

The changeling and the one replaced, both of them misplaced,
yearning from the life from which they’ve been displaced.
Who can blame their solitude, their yearning to be other?
Wanting to take one life and trade it for another?

Prompts for today are changeling, pristine, petition, facilitate and wilderness.

Note: A Changeling is a fairy  that has been substituted for a human baby. While changelings can look like anyone, they do have a true form. Their natural look can be scary to some due to their lack of detail and distinctive features. Their skin tone is always pale, either white or light gray, and they tend to have slender bodies with limbs slightly longer in proportion to other humanoids.The surest way to tell if you have a Changeling on your hands is by observing the temperament of the human in question. Changelings are constantly unhappy, unfriendly, and mean. They may be very cold and aloof, and may even recoil from human touch. Changeling babies’ appetites are never satiated. They may develop nocturnal habits and are abnormally aware of paranormal activity. The mortal child is taken back to the realm of the fairies to be raised and put to work, while the creature left behind usually sickens and dies.

Fatal Obsession

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Fatal Obsession

My father is an ogre and rather hard-of-hearing,
but I had the silly idea I could rise above my rearing.
All my friends were human and I had a strange obsession
for screening them from tendencies I had in my possession.

The result was that I scored a beau inimitably grand—
the sort of perfect boyfriend I thought I’d never land.
Vibrant, handsome, wealthy and inordinately smart,
he was the sort of catch that would melt any ogress heart.

In short, I could barely believe that Avery was mine,
but when I brought him pridefully home with me to dine,
after the aperitifs, the soup and the tossed salad,
I noticed that my father was looking somewhat pallid.

I stepped into the kitchen to find him food more savory,
only to return to find that dad had eaten Avery!!
I cried, “How could you do this to one who’s so indelible?
“I tried to prove you wrong,” he said. “I thought you said inedible!”

 

Note: An ogre (feminine: ogress) is a legendary monster usually depicted as a large, hideous, man-like being that eats ordinary human beings, Ogres are closely linked with giants and with human cannibals in mythology.

Prompt words for today are vibrant, indelible, inimitable, possess and pride.

Last Little Piggy Goes to Market: NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 21

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Last Little Piggy Goes To Market

I am the littlest piggy, and when I commenced to roam,
why did I cry “Wee wee wee” all the long way home?
My sibling went to market and I followed along.
The path was rough and winding–as steep as it was long.

My little legs were tired, yet I followed close behind––
I wondered if he knew that I was following if he’d mind.
My family never let me go hardly anywhere,
so market piqued my interest. I wondered what was there.

I asked my other siblings if they wouldn’t like to try it,
but one was into his roast beef, the other on a diet.
She said she would be tempted by the pastries and the candy.
This was enough to convince me this market was a dandy.

When we crested the final hill and rounded the last bend,
the market spread out for so far, I couldn’t see its end.
Booth after booth was set up to sell its chosen fare.
My head swung fast from side to side to see all that was there.

Buttons, bolsters, bumbershoots and books with songs or riddles.
Little dainty donuts with whipped cream in their middles.
Tinkertoys and rubber balls and cricket bats and kites.
My eyes could not keep up with all these delicious sights.

I lost sight of my brother, but I didn’t care.
I was too busy ogling all this varied fare.
My tummy started rumbling. Ice cream, cakes and pies.
I wished that I could put my mouth where I had put my eyes.

But then I stopped to look at a very curious rig
and a big sign that said “Barbecue—what? Barbecue pig????
Folks stood around with sandwiches filled with dripping meat,
and then I saw another sign that said “Pickled Pig’s Feet!!!”

My pigs’ feet took me out of there as fast as I could joggle.
I didn’t stop for donuts. I didn’t stop to ogle.
I scurried for my own safe yard, squealing “Wee, wee, wee!”
Now when I seek adventure, home is enough for me!!!

 

The Prompt: write a poem in the voice of minor character from a fairy tale or myth.
http://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-one/