Master of Her Fate

A girl tired of fairytales

where beauty was always the winner,

decided to be master of her own fate.

She spoke a spell in the air

to hoodwink a prince,

and waited for him to find her.

She giggled at rumors

a prince was searching for a princess,

but he was having no luck.

He saw beauties too tall

and beauties too small.

There was a parade of too fat and too thin.

The King and Queen were losing hope

the palace would ever see a grandchild

if their son did not find a wife soon.

The Queen was so distraught

she moaned within the girl’s hearing,

“How do you know a real princess?”

Taking her pen the girl wrote

an anonymous letter to the queen.

A pea and mattresses would reveal a true princess.

Knowing the Queen’s tender heart

that couldn’t see anyone suffer,

the girl watched the sky for rain.

Knocking at the palace door

looking more like a drowned kitten than girl

she asked if she might come in out of the storm.

The Queen’s heart fluttered.

The note without a name

spoke of a girl who would arrive in the rain.

  

She ordered the servants deliver dry clothes,

and whispered, “Bury a pea

in piles of mattresses in the guest bedroom.”

The next morning the Queen inquired,

“How did you sleep?”

The girl replied, “Not well. The bed had a lump.”

Ecstatic the Queen shouted,

“Bring me the prince at once!

I have found the real princess!”

Two weeks later the girl married the prince.

She stood smiling at her success and stated,

“If you want to live a fairy tale life, just devise a plan for it.”

©Susie Clevenger 2011

Photograph: Favim-Source Unknown
Real Toads picture prompt: Un-Fairytales