The Briar’s Lullaby by Joshua Walker

A large tree in the middle of green woodland. Large white text reads: The Briar's Lullaby. Smaller text reads: Discussing disabled characters in fairy tales and folklore.

They told me the curse was a kindness,
a spindle’s prick to spare the kingdom
from the burden of my broken mind.
“Let her sleep,” they said,
“Her thoughts too sharp, her tongue a thorn,
her dreams too vast for walls to hold.”
But I did not sleep.
Not in the way they meant.
In my cage of roses, I lay awake,
each thorn a needle threading whispers:
What if the curse was never kindness?
What if the silence wasn’t mercy?
What if my dreams were a forest
they feared to enter?
I grew wild there.
The briars were mine.
When the prince came, blade in hand,
I laughed to see him bleed--
for once, the world bent to my thorns.
He begged for a kiss to break the spell.
Instead, I offered him my dreams:
a tangle of shadows too sharp to untie.
Let him sleep now.
Let him know what it means
to carry a forest inside.