When the Sleeping Beauty Wakes
Poem - by J. D. Harlock
When the sleeping beauty wakes,
she leaves behind the refuge of dreams
for the uncertainty of a world she once knew
and now will never understand
For a hundred years have passed since little Briar Rose was last awake
and the brunt of a mad fairy’s passion has been fuelled
into utter futility
by the prick of a spindle
All those servants who were dragged into a deep sleep with her
Now awaken in that overgrown castle—
Their friends and family long gone
Their old lives lost forever—
with questions whose answers
will never satisfy them
And her loving parents,
the honorable king and queen,
will finally awaken—
Their kingdom now in tatters
Their majesty faded with time—
having sacrificed the world for their
little daughter
who will never understand
Thankfully,
The prized gifts of—
beauty, wit, grace, dance, song, and goodness—
bestowed upon her
by the wise ones
For although Briar Rose has not awakened by herself
She is truly alone
Just a little girl out of time
in a strange overgrown castle
she once called home
Now obliged to spend the rest of her days with a suitor
she has just met
A charming prince who has taken her first kiss from her
in a moment she had dreamt of her entire life
Only to awake to it distraught and unsettled
But remember children,
This is the happy ending
The compromise that would please all