Prince Disarming

In the stories, something always goes wrong; it is the kiss that fixes it. They never tell you what happens after. All it says is that they lived happily ever after. Until tomorrow, until they are hit by the asteroid they thought was a wishing star. Until they find out he snores and she spends all the kingdom's money on shoes and dresses and her hair. Humans cannot find someone to fall in love with instantly, perfectly, incandescently, not without something going wrong, not without work. There is no godmother to turn rags into riches, no mouse to unlock the door, no frog to turn into a prince.

My mother hated fairy tales; we never went to see romantic comedies together. My mother bought me R.L. Stein books, took me to see slasher films. It was my father who let me be Cinderella for Halloween, who took me to dance class on Saturdays. He bought me tiaras, watched Disney movies with me. He told me anything was possible, he left it up to me to decide whom to become.

Be tough, mother said, enjoy men, be friends with them, but never fall in love. Sure God promised me a plan, she said, but the stories promised me a prince, where is he, where would he keep the white horse, which would make his armor, who would fight him in battle? Only little girls in fairy wings believe Prince Charming is going to come riding out of the stars to save them.

I wanted her to be wrong so I dated every "Prince" I could find.
I used to dream this as a child. I stood on a balcony waiting, facing the Dog Star, lonely because everyone had someone to dance with but me. I was waiting for someone to push open the ballroom doors, to walk out, masked in shadows, saying my name softly, reverently. I would stand there like a fool all night, in some elaborate costume, soft, silk gloves, waiting for the simple exhale, the hand on my shoulder, the "Come dance, darling."

I would wake up feeling the same emptiness that those kisses gave me. As if, my bones were hollow, as if those kisses were killing me. I would look into their eyes and see all the other girls who hoped on them, who thought they were the ones. I saw the girl they were meant to have. I would have terrible dreams about all the girls they thought they loved.

I felt like my heart might stop each time, it never felt right. It's was not lust that made me hot, dry, shaky. I could feel their breath, stale on my nose and cheeks. I couldn't feel my lips. When they kissed me I couldn't feel myself. I was tired of the silence, so sometimes I kissed them back the first time, tried to empty the silence into them, tried to give them the dream, the stars spinning like tops, dawn coming like death, the worst sort of waiting, waiting to be whole, waiting to live again.

I tried to see ever after in them, but all I saw was my future stretching out like a curse, the way the enchanted objects in the Beast's Castle must have felt waiting all those years for the right one. I saw all this in the breath of time it took for them to lean in for another kiss, for me to push them away. All these boys before me, trying to wake me up, to fit the slipper, to save my life, I had nothing for them but empty eyes, a "take me home."

Mother told me real fairy tales as a child. She said no one fell in love instantly. I believed her because true love never lasted. Sometimes when my father stayed up late at night to watch The Ninja Show my mother would fall into a deep, slake sleep. I would crawl into bed beside her, my arm wrapped around her arm and together we would dream.