Rapunzel at Enchanted Lakes Beachfront Townhomes

I can see the sea from here, but I can’t escape. Under lock & key inside my girlhood room, my hair grows long. Mother comes each night to wash & towel-dry my hair, then braid it tight, a chain along my spine.

Each night mother reads my day as written on my palms. One day she returns at dawn to strip the stories from their shelves. She won’t speak to me but shreds the pages

of each book whose plotline would point elsewhere. Locked inside the wrong house, the wrong full-skirted nightdress, I can see the sea, the horizon receding but lit at dusk as if by torches.

I’ll be the match. What damsel doesn’t love a house fire, all the rooms consumed by flames.