2015-2016, Poem

Gift

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)