Featured in the 2015 Fall Issue of Rambunctious
Gift Helen Ferrick, '16 you’ve climbed to the top: monster slain, girl won, kingdom saved (nevermind your battle scars and the pain that comes so suddenly) you’ve made it, you’re the top 1% gifted with a capital ‘G’ gifted, sure, because although you had to work for this (that dragon didn’t kill itself, did it?) you’ve been given a lot. how to measure the value of you? the mounted head on the wall, scaled lips stretching around a snarl? the girl, leaned against the doorframe, painted features smirking slightly? and then there’s you- sitting by the fire with a good book, the gift of success running through your veins you’re free to sit there until your bones turn to dust, until the world forgets that there ever was a dragon you’re free to leave, but of course there’s no need the man who killed a dragon and got everything he’d ever wanted and never took up a sword again or felt the exhilaration of battle race through his bloodstream no- that exhilaration, replaced by the gift of success and safety (Gift- kein Geschenk)