Love was always a stranger

A child’s understanding of love. A prince who rescues me. Happily ever after. A lesson hidden in plain sight. Taught to girls from childhood. Be good. Be beautiful. Be everything he wants. He will love you. He’s good because he loves you. So I thought it was love. He said it was, so it must be. Who am I to question? I believed the fairytale truth. He’s a good person. Because he loves me. The Prince who loves his Snow White. His Cinderella. His Sleeping Beauty. The villain wouldn’t love me surely. A bad man wouldn’t love me. That’s not how the fairytale goes. He is my Prince, a hero. So it must be me. I am wrong to feel he doesn’t love me. I must have something wrong with me for him to treat me like this. I need to be a better woman. A better wife. Thinner. Prettier. Then he will love me truly. And we will have our happily ever after. I’d agreed to our wedding on another island. Away from my family and friends. I’d agreed to move to his foreign land. Because he said he loved me. And this was love, wasn’t it? With small problems that I can fix. By being quiet and obedient. Acquiescing to him always. I still thought it was love. He said it was so it must. Who am I to know different? I still believed the fairytale truth. But that isn’t love. Just some ancient lore To keep women down And complacent. I heard a heartbroken woman speak. Their words were a shock Then healed me to the bone “I deserve better, Even if that means I’m alone” An epiphany that hurt. Showed me how I had been fooled. That what I believed as a child Was a dark and insidious rot. Now I know the truth. Love had always been a stranger. I’ve never known it well. Just a figure in the distance.