Ever After

 

I wrote a ballad when I was young,

a prophetic tale for days

my life one day would know,

with stars surrounding my head

and flashes of fortune’s flurries

producing stars over my soul.

 

Imagining the flush from riveting brass rings

grabbed on that carousel of life,

wedding my fate to a golden dream,

swirling with joy through my heart.

 

But the years wore as a tattered fabric

where the stitches came apart,

ever after sadly shrinking in its tapestry,

slowly stripped of any tinsel.

 

Left within a realm lacking glamour

painted with faded hues,

until what I saw through the window

of my mind

was a reality so very ordinary.

 

Living in that scrap yard of fancy,

finding gems amid the broken machines

once used to crank out visions.

 

Learning to discover

there really was a happy ending

when I saw the splendor in the trash,

accepting the existence as a castle

instead of a dungeon

trapped far away

from the paradise of my ignorance.