Once Upon a Time
Is not synonymous
With Happily Ever After
Even as the praise singer
Reaches her crescendo
With the embers of the bonfire ring
Once Upon a Time
Is a sari on a loom
A bawling seasick child on a ship
A door-to-door hawker
A story written in a strangled tongue
Once Upon a Time
Is a Casper-policed school
An underground prison
A kidnapped freedom fighter
Re-emerging with welts
Never quite the same again
Once Upon a Time
Is a mandatory inheritance
The floating Olympic torch
Fanning the baton of insight
Before threats of erasure
Or externally manipulated narratives
Once Upon a Time
Must be inked
Whispered
Stamped
Told in no uncertain terms
To make real its heritage
Guard against the error of its ways
Especially when
It’s not synonymous
With Happily Ever After
Aaishah Mayet was born and bred in the City of Gold, Johannesburg, South Africa. She works in the Healthcare sector which, for her, has bridged the frontiers of our shared human experience. As a self-confessed bibliophile of many years, literature remains, at once, her teacher and her sanctuary. Her works include Haiku published in the Lotosblute, as well as poetry published online in the Agbowo Limits issue, Poetry Potion, Active Muse and Amaliah.