Here it is,

been building

laying stable,

over a moving table of sparkling,

shimmering kira-kira

LAVA–

 

At least, this is the way I tend to view

the rapture of everything-ruffles, Disney-don’t even-show-her-Barbies-please-no

towards my three year old girl

now very very interested in, acting out princesses,

shopping for fancy dresses,

earnestly wanting that set with the two pairs of heels.

Heels.

Just stop there.

Her little growing strong back potentially compromised by heels?

Heck, no.

 

Sometimes it seems a threat,

these princesses finding our house,

wanting to come in.

First it’s a friendly knock,

but repeatedly,

they ding-dong, ping-pong,

to play with my girl.

 

This is the input that makes her

wanna be glamorous everyday,

say

she wants to put on makeup,

be Cinderella–

a pretty, little, gorgeous thing.

 

Can you tell

I’ve been a bit tense about it?

Those Disney girls pushing catalogs for

the same costumes everybody wears, made in great giant batches of pink

for millions of girls,

which prompt them to ask, “Am I pretty?”

Then, “Pretty enough?”

 

This is the sugar-plum hair net

which shapes their thoughts

and culls their own creativity, perhaps–

to potentially stifle

the idea that she can imagine a different Cinderella dress–

that it doesn’t necessarily have to be light blue with puffy sleeves,

the lovely understanding

that women come resplendent in many many

ways, shapes, legs, tummies

not simply Disney’s or “the highway”.

 

Now there are

new mentions at ladies’ weight and haircolor.

 

Now she notices overeating and thinks about, points out

people.

She says if she eats too much she will get a tummy ache;

but one time she switched “tummy ache” for “FAT”.

 

Raising a little hun,

praising her heart and mind and body

while balancing princesses

and the story, her own story of creation

sometimes yields

a lithe, excited three year old, chanting

praise to God…

for making her a princess…

 

And then there’s the possibility that humility

can be zapped.

The good, real stuff snatched.

A three year old wanting to be twenty-two

like “that”.

I’ve been trying to avoid

this thing

 

but

 

turns out princesses are quite nice

and this one

even wore her earrings, crown, light-up amethyst necklace to build.

Not pour over a mirror,

not act-out a commercial,

but build.

Create.

So I think, perhaps,

her footing,

her luminescent glass slipper may still be

on solid ground,

intact.