Feminine Enchantment: An Assortment of Girlish Fantasies
BILLIE PAPASOTIRIOU
Lunar Liberation
What good is The Moon if she cannot be bought or sold?
When devious wolves in red neckties screech in vain,
Howling senseless prices for their own benefit
She cannot hear, she exists in foreign language.
Tonight she is full
And they all scramble to get their bid in
Before she eventually
sinks
And the sun takes her place.
His hot rays shine on the truth:
If everybody is thinking alike,
It means somebody is not thinking
And the beasts cannot handle that.
So tomorrow night the beasts will return in comfortable darkness
Seeking revenge with the same old pointless schemes
And the moon’s purity will continue to prosper, outliving them
For evil cannot touch her, she cannot be bought or sold.
A Moment to Breathe
At dusk I yearn
To sink my weary head
Into the softness of my pillow
To drown in the linens of my childhood bed
At bedtime I pray
That I will fall into slumber fast
And awake in that joyful realm
Where I will heal from the day at last
In my sleep I reach
Downwards, for the grey carpeted floor
To pull myself beneath the timber bedframe
And tumble into the colourful void, through the trapdoor
In this liminal moment I rejoice
Between worlds I can shed my false skin
I make ugly and authentic sounds
As I am freed from the reins of reality, I grin
When I land in my vibrant garden I sigh
I search for a warm spot in the sun
And there I lay for as long as it takes
For the rot to melt away, until there is none…
In the delicate light beams I bloom
Once again I have had a good rest
I hope that I have gained enough strength
To pretend for another day, to pass the test
At dawn I pretend
To be something I am not at all
I mold myself, compact myself down
Into something palatable, so that I don’t appall
This world that can’t tolerate me in my entirety.
The Awakening
One balmy afternoon in my youthful delight
I frolicked through a grassy field of potential
Singing songs of innocence and freedom
Ignorant to the confinement of time.
After a good deal of skipping
I encountered a tall lightwood tree
Standing in solitude
A strange light protruding from its centre.
Upon investigation my innocent eyes were astounded
To see a perfectly circular hole in the tree
Where the light shone aggressively in different colours
Blues, purples and greens.
Its source was a spherical, unrecognisable object
Whether it was solid or liquid I could not decipher
But the longer I stared I could not resist
To reach my hand out and caress it…
…vivid and golden images consumed my vision
An unfamiliar, radiant smile
Soft hands slowly caressing my breasts
Hazel irises gazing into my soul…
In my confusion I dropped the orb-like thing
And fell, slowly, to the soft grassy floor.
I felt something drastic had shifted within me
Something I would never claim back.
From that day onwards I was no longer a child.
Nature is magic and so am I
I believe that during our youth
We are covered in honey
Anything that is spoken to us
Sticks to us for a long time.
When I gaze in the mirror
I still hear those awful voices
Childish, full of venom
Unaware of their long-lasting impact.
They have corrupted my identity…
I still resent my spotty teeth
They said they are strange and discoloured
But are they not like the shell of a lady bug?
Or the spots of a leopard?
I still scorn the stretch marks upon my hips
They said I should apply ointment to make them fade
But are they not like the sand dunes?
Or the intricate patterns of a tree’s bark?
I still loathe the wispy hairs that cover me all over
They said it is unfeminine and gross
But is it not there for a reason?
Is this not the way I was intended to be?
Billie Papasotiriou is based in the Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia, and spends her time as a theatre performer, bookseller and ‘BookTok’ content creator. She is currently studying a Bachelor of Arts undergraduate degree at Macquarie University and aspires to write poetry and literary fiction surrounding her experience as a young, neurodivergent woman.