by Carrie Kim
art by Emma Eisler
This is an ages-old tale about a Fairy and a Woodcutter
The chances are that you have heard it many, many times already
You must know how the story goes, a kind woodcutter saving a talking deer
And becoming privy to a never-told secret about beautiful women who take a dip come nightfall
He finds her broken and becomes her salvation, offering her a home, a palace of duty
She bears him a child, or maybe there were two, but the story goes that she’s a slick-mouthed liar
A thief, a user, leaving him with all her kids
A cunning manipulator, an ungrateful wife, running away with her glistening silk dress
Or maybe it wasn’t a dress, it was her whole skin too
She carefully peeled it, folded it and kissed it under a rock
Her name is Fairy or Selkie, a monster, a girl child
She roams the high mountains, between pages of your children’s book
But what you never knew was that she never needed a palace of wood
She could already take flight and the whole ocean was hers, too
No fall, no drowning, no servitude under violent eyes
She doesn’t read love to be abduction and wonders why all these storytellers do
So the next time you pull out this card, don’t believe the woodcutter, dear reader
For they know nothing about being free, only about wooden homes and bodies in constant reach
Drown, die, with your children or without your children
But never believe the woodcutter, the woodcutter always lies