An Exit Interview with the Princess

The reason you weren't hired
Or, rather, why we rejected your application

Is because you lack imagination
But there’s no shame in that

Most people who lack the ability to see
The extraordinary and only the ordinay

Are still able to lead perfectly normal lives
Although a few do commit suicide

She took a drag of her cigarette
And in one long breath

Exhaled a thick cloud of smoke
And then cleared her throat

Take for example, the staircase
Between the first and second floors

You see it as a conveyance of steps
To get you from one floor to the next

We see it as a diagonal drawbridge
That leads to a castle in the sky

To you these rooms are just the rooms
But to us they're inns along the highway

Where we can stop and rest
At the end of each day's journey

And yet for all that you miss
You still see yourself as a Princess

But, clearly, you are only a business woman
Wearing a Cinderella dress

And with that she lit another cigarette
And left in a trail of smoke

To look for a job in another fairy tale
One that required a dragon

Part Of the Poem

Your fingers walk across the keyboard
And the words they leave behind

Become the small footprints
That lead to one of your poems

Later someone follows them
And finds the door you left unlocked

They knock - but no one is home
They enter your poem - Alone

The ceiling is swirling with clouds
The walls are as fluid as the wind

They are standing in the vortex
of a metamorphosis

They sit in one of the comfortable
Over sized chairs

And close their eyes… to rest
For what seems only a moment

But their dreams spin them into a
Deep chrysalis of sleep

And when they awaken
and it is time to leave

They take with them the part of the poem
They have written