You crafted me from blossom and brush
and expected me to sigh and blush,
but you forgot so many flowers
have such fickle thorns.
Beneath the shady forest bowers,
by the will of your powers,
I took first sweet fragrant breath,
and I thus was born.
But from those first fateful steps,
I was told: in life, and death,
That I was one shape for another
molded, sculpted, formed.
“You will be a young lord’s lover.”
“You will be a faithful mother.”
“Maiden, fair, delicate.”
From forest, I was torn:
To learn your courtly etiquette
in your world cold, synthetic,
and though you poured devotion…
I grew more forlorn.
So I hid each wild emotion,
cast away each wistful notion
that I could be anything besides
that which I was born.
But a hunter in my heart resides,
and he showed me where my true self hides:
deep beneath root, and branch, and feather
passivity turned to scorn.
And you call me beast that I did sever
my fate from you who were so clever
to give me life and give me wile
but think me content to be shorn.
So a beast I am, of tooth, claw, and guile,
in feathers cloaked, in deep exile,
and I will roam these nighttime skies
until I am reborn.
You shaped me with your clever lies,
tried to make me ideal shape and size
but forgot there is great power
in those from forest formed.
