Cinderella Sleeps
By Gwen Knighton
© 1996

Cinderella in the city
Works behind a bar
Snow White washes dishes there;
The pay does not go far
Drunken dwarves and plastic princes
Give away their false pretenses
Snow White rubs her dishpan hands
And Cinderella weeps.

Cinderella soaks her aching
Feet when she gets home
Snow White takes a bubble bath
And makes a tower out of foam.
Every night it's just the same,
Television, rummy game,
Snow White runs the phone bill up
While Cinderella sleeps.

Cinderella sleeps in dreams
Of strawberries and cold whipped cream
And Destiny steps in from the blue.
Where do all the dreamy girls go
When the story's through?
To the world, all wide-eyed,
With the dreams they never outgrew.

In the middle of the night
A knock comes on the door.
Beauty's beastly boyfriend
Doesn't want her anymore.
Cinderella makes the couch up
Snow White overfills the coffee cups
Beauty snores to beat the band
And Snow White lies awake.

Snow White's got a boyfriend,
He's 2000 miles away.
She met him in a chat room
They're an Internet cliché
E-mailed poems, love long-distance
It's a virtual Gothic romance
Cindy smirks behind her hand
At Snow White's big mistake.

Snow White types a blue streak
As she bares her soul to some unseen geek
And Destiny's the bump on her Enter key.
Where do all the quiet girls go
When dreams cut them free?
Through the gates to Cyberland
There are no guarantees

Beauty's in a quandary
Doesn't know which way to turn
This life is a lesson
That she never seems to learn
It's always the same old story
Her role seems obligatory
Waiting for her latest jerk
To morph into a prince.

Cinderella sleeps in fitful 
Spurts of toss and turn
Snow White loves in Cyberspace
Until her fingers burn
Beauty's a translucent shadow
The lonely couch is long and narrow
Hope flew when she lost her Beast
And hasn't been back since.

Next week it's another tale
Of broken dreams and love grown stale
And Destiny's like twilight as she creeps
Where the girls from fairy tales go
When the plotline leaps
To the world of lives unlived
Where Cinderella sleeps.
 

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