Refracting Hope

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Bedtime stories

I’ll marry you one day daddy

When I’m a grown-up I’ll be your wife.

And we’ll live in a beautiful castle

And have a happily-ever-after life.

 

You’ll grow up to hate me my darling

I’ll haunt you long after you’ve gone

This nightmare that you’ll call childhood

Will make you wish

you’d never been born.

 

We’ll have lots of nice things daddy

And at night we’ll waltz on the stars

I’ll be the princess and you’ll be my prince

And we’ll own a holiday house up on Mars.

 

I’ll crush you bit by bit darling

I’ll grind you under my heel.

I’ll hurt you in ways you can’t imagine

Until you ache too much too feel.

 There’ll be a bad dragon daddy

But I know that you’ll kill him quite dead

You won’t let him hurt me I know dad

Not even one hair on my head.

You’ll grow up thinking you’re ugly

You’ll grow up thinking you’re cheap

I’ll use you and use you and use you

Then leave you a crumpled heap.

 I’ll love you forever daddy

We’ll holiday in Timbuktu

You’ll never have to work, and we’ll have such fun

And we’ll never have to eat icky chicken stew.

 

In twenty years from now darling

When you cry and shake in the night

I’ll be inside you, destroying you

A sorrow that’s just beyond sight.

Originally written 2006