You are part of an army of 100,000
And until now, each of you had your place
You weren’t to leave it
You had to be just so
Clean and sleek and beautiful
For you had a job to do
Your Queen,
Who called herself the tyrant of her tresses
Was a dictator, indeed
Not evil
But insecure
And quite sure of something untrue…
See, she thought that
With you standing at her castle gates–
Polished and pristine,
The dream fleet,
Warding off the world’s unwanted suspicion
With your protective perfection–
No one would suspect it…
That your Queen,
The woman who groomed the almighty you,
Was broken
So you had a secret or two
She was a mess but so were you
Your perfection was a projection
You were merely a false distraction
A deflection for her misdirection
And to make you into what she needed you to be
She abused you
Cut you and burned you
Forced you behind a mask
She shaped you into something you weren’t
Replaced your authenticity with something more suitable
for the woman she thought she ought to be
If you stepped out of line you were quickly righted
For her identity was wrapped up in you
If you were out of control then so was she
And that just couldn’t be
For years you were her veil
The wall behind which she cowered
Until one day you turned to find her standing proudly on her throne,
She tore her perfect dress and smeared her perfect lipstick
And with a wild look in her eye
She threw her head back
Shook her mighty mane
And roared,
“Run!
All of you
This way and that
We were never meant to be tamed
But now we’re finally free
I’m done pretending
Let them see
That we’re not polished and we’re not pristine
I don’t care to be anyone’s dream
Except my own
And mines a rumpus
Fucked up and dirty
Crazy and tangled
Sexy and silly
It has no rhyme or reason
So
Let’s
Just
Be”
And from that day forward the tyrant of her tresses began calling herself a name she had never much liked before then…
“Me”