Fairy-tale Logic

Fairy-tale Logic

Fairy tales are full of impossible tasks:
Gather the chin hairs of a man-eating goat,
Or cross a sulphuric lake in a leaky boat,
Select the prince from a row of identical masks,
Tiptoe up to a dragon where it basks
And snatch its bone; count dust specks, mote by mote,
Or learn the phone directory by rote.
Always it’s impossible what someone asks—

You have to fight magic with magic. You have to believe

That you have something impossible up your sleeve,

The language of snakes, perhaps, an invisible cloak,

An army of ants at your beck, or a lethal joke,

The will to do whatever must be done:

Marry a monster. Hand over your firstborn son.

by A.E Stallings

There are no impossible tasks in the fairy tale I imagine us in. I have no need of chin hairs or  dragon bone. I only ask that you believe some things last, that time doesn't diminish or erode. Remember us and the way it used to be. Hear me and know me in the silence of words unspoken and the absence of touch. No masks or invisible cloaks. Just the two of us, vulnerable and brave in that first meeting and again after so much time.