The Glass Coffin by Joshua Walker

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

I was always the broken one,
a jagged shard of mirrored light.
The fairest of them all--
but they never told me
fairness was a curse.
When they laid me in the glass coffin,
the dwarves wept salt that carved
rivers in their faces.
They did not know
the coffin was not a tomb
but a lens.
Through it, I saw the prince’s approach,
his perfect features fractured
by the warped glass.
I saw the cracks in his smile,
the pity behind his eyes.
I saw myself as they saw me:
a body polished and preserved,
an object too fragile to touch
but too pretty to let go.
So I shattered the glass
with my unkissed lips,
cut my way out of their story,
and left the prince bleeding on the forest floor.
He called me wicked,
but wicked is just what they name us
when we break the molds
they cast us in.
I wandered until I found a mirror
that didn’t lie.
And in its broken face,
I saw my own reflection--
whole at last.