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Maleficent
Her mother insisted that she be a Medieval girl
and gave her a daily supplement of arsenic.
It made her skin translucent.
Brought her blue veins to the surface.
Kept her lips and eyelids green.
            Arsenic green.
Kept the girl anorexic, throwing up every meal.
Thinned her tongue, made her breath smell of acid.
It simmered her heart in a constant cool anger,
            the kind that could kill a princess
            like the prick from a spindle.
A migraine of anger horned itself from her temples
adding a self-sharpening growth ring each year.
A languorous anger
            that could hold a prince captive
            for a hundred years
            behind the fear of a kiss
            and became her dragon's rage
            at the threat of waking love.
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