“Once upon a time”

My mother had begun

It was like this every bedtime

She wouldn’t stop till she was done

 

She told me every night

The story of my birth,

My dark fable, her plight.

How she had to unearth

 

A little man’s name for my life,

Because he spun her gold

And she became the king’s wife.

I was the price, a promise to uphold

 

“And on the third day,”

Oh yes, here we go—

“I happened to overhear him say”

We’re finally almost through.

 

“‘To-day I bake, to-morrow brew,

the next I'll have the young queen's child.

Ha, glad am I that no one knew

that Rumpelstiltskin I am styled.’”

 

“Then he tore himself in two”

Or so she thinks.

If only she knew.

The small man visits me,

And with a nod and a wink

I have no choice but to agree.