What if Fairy Tales were Diagnosis Stories by Christa Fairbrother

A large tree in the middle of green woodland. Large white text reads: What if Fairy Tales were Diagnosis Stories. Smaller text reads: Discussing disability in fairy tales and folklore.

I.  Systemic
Little Red Riding Hood was a good daughter, knew her place.  She listened to her mother, baked bread for her grandmother.  She used her local trails to get around, sometimes picking flowers, always sustainably.   On walks, she skipped along, hummed, her biology functioned.  Though she didn’t always listen.  Systems of oppression had taught her to ignore her nervous system.  So many systems - she was not immune to any of them.

​II.  Lupus
Modern diseases have scientific labels,
scleroderma, myositis.
Some, old names from fairy tales,
rickets, scarlet fever.  Hers was both,
science sandwiching a thirteenth-century fear.
Lupus, the wolf’s bite.
A menace to her, to women.
 Always being chased,
the hunger/desire of a predator
following two steps behind,
 waiting two steps ahead.
A random presence to keep her heart
racing, panting, looking.
Will she get eaten today?

III.  Erythematosus

from the Greek, erythro, meaning red.

red and tainted

 marked by her ancestors, red

red blood she passes on to her daughters

monthly slough blood red

red flush, marks on her skin

not a blush, lesions of red

red blisters, rash, wolf bites weep

hood worn to cover the skin, red

red shell she cannot shed

protect her, keep her from getting red

red goes all the way through

bursting bitter anemic blood.

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About the author:
Christa Fairbrother, MA, is Gulfport, Florida’s poet laureate. She’s had poetry in Crannog, Epiphany, Pleiades, and Salamander, among others, and been nominated for a Pushcart twice.  She is a poetry editor at Phylum Press, and she loves tea and avocados.  Connect with her: www.christafairbrotherwrites.com, on IG @christafairbrotherwrites, or BlueSky @christafairbrother.