Reading Time: 2 minutes
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
Jolen Whitworth is an American born award winning poet who lives with her English husband in West Yorkshire.  Jolen has been a personal friend for quite a long while and, for me, this poem really typifies her characteristic of always fighting for the underdog.  I have featured one other of her poems too: "In The Shape Of A Hart" which will also be found among my picks.
Cinderalla Wants Her Slipper Back


The midnight toll passed hours ago,
it’s time to crawl into a cold bed,
red-eyed and agitated. She’ll stay silent
and grab the Valium, while you become
paranoid and do one more line.

She wants to run a marathon, shop for shoes,
tell the world how good her skin feels,
right up until it ends. Then she’s a broken-
winged pixie, careening toward the pit.

That damn clock and its smug
wide-open chimes announce a full-throated
conclusion to another intolerable day.
She feels like her ugly stepsisters,
mangled under the royal carriage wheels.

Twisted in sweat-soaked silk sheets,
suppressing screams, she stares at the nothing
filling the room and repeats the litany:
Tomorrow will be different.

She barely resembles that girl you promised
a happily-ever-after, before this travesty of
over-sized handbags, designer poison
and constant nasal-drip.

The mice hate wearing tuxedos, she wants
to exchange the corvette for a pumpkin,
and if you could pour that champagne out
of her glass slipper, Cinderella would like it back.


© Jolen Whitworth 2023