Cinderella

A memory of days past when I was little and everything was so... simple.

A faint foggy image

One I play and play again, trying to remember

Keep it safe inside my head

Cradle it in the depths of my brain's curves and turns

Embrace it, I miss it.

A little girl, dressed in little jeans

Little shirt, and one little plastic dress-up shoe

Running down the hall of her grandparent's home

Smiling wide and happy, invigorated and wild

Carefree, innocent, full of joy

Though she only has one shoe, the other bare and collecting

Little bits of dirt from the tiled floor of her grandma's floors

A shadow behind her, chasing and shouting

"Wait!"  to his little cinderella.

the matching plastic shoe in his hand and a smile

So large, so kind

He catches the girl, sweeps her off her feet

Carrying her over his shoulder

As she squirms, giggling uncontrollably

As her daddy puts on the other shoe

"There, you're complete," he says

A smile on both of their faces as he laughs,

So cheerful, so there

"Not without my prince," the little girl squeeks

As he lowers her down to the ground.

She clings to his legs, hugging them tight

So loving, so loved

Light, so filled with light

So simple, yet so full with meaning

Meaning to me as

The images slip away, leaving my head filled with television snow

So happy, so bouncy

That little girl, so free was I

So simple those days.

Whatever happened to that daddy?

So loving, so there

Love is so tangible, so loose

Easy to detach from one to another

Torn from another's soul, their heart

I also remember the day daddy left the little girl

When he left me, alone, so down

He was so loving -to another, so there for another

Took the shoe, left me incomplete

Cinderella, hobbling back to her dungeon

No prince chasing after.

It was just a game to him

It was the world to me.