Cinderella

1.
She thought of herself as clay,
the neon colored kind you mould
into something exciting and carefully
wrap into plastic so that it stays soft.
He could mould her into whatever neon shape he chose,
she was malleable, she was putty in his hands.
She smiled every day at the colors
he mixed, the shapes he made.
Her happiness was tangible like powdered sugar,
light on the surface of tarts, breakfast delicacies
Soft and sweet and always there.
He gave her roses, she gave him kisses as the
sun set softly over the parking lot.

2.
He called her from a golf course in Florida,
she sat on her bed and looked out the window at rain.
The rotting leafy world seemed to
echo with things fallen, things lost.
She wondered where all the leaves had gone,
when everything had become so grey and moldy.
He said that he missed her, and she wondered
what it was that he missed.
He had become the voice in her head, she
collected stories to tell him, she
predicted his reactions to her everyday ups and downs,
the screaming child in the grocery store, the comment
her mother made while cooking.

3.
Try on as many Cinderella shoes as you want,
he told her,
there will be no fit,
no happiness in the ending.
After he left she sat alone at the table;
red linen cloth, white candle in a glass bowl.
The jazz singer crooned,
making love with the piano music.
Smoke rose lazily in the air over the bar,
slow thick spirals in the yellow candlelight.
She dropped sugar packets
one by one into the flame
and watched them burn.