Life.

Each tired, lonely night, my old, tattered
Friends, each with a thousand tales
Of adventure to tell, welcome me home.
Their endless pages filled near to bursting
With vanquished demons and realized
Dreams, and the good guy always wins,
And the girl gets saved (unless she's her
Own hero)and everyone but the villain
Lives happily ever after.
They take me on journeys to whole new
Worlds, ones I never imagined existing
Places I could never go alone.
I have danced in crystal gardens and
Grand ballrooms with Princes in feathered masks
And seen the rising sun glance off the slumbering
Scales of a dragon atop its gleaming horde.
I've battled sea monsters a thousand feet below the
Sea, watching fragile bubbles of air mark my position
Up above, 
And galaxies light-years away have bowed down to me
As their queen.
Each place had its own distinct flavor,
Its own unique set of rules to learn.
I met a mermaid once, just shy of seventeen,
In the frigid waters of the North Atlantic.
She was convinced that with legs, up on land,
People would see her as a bright young
Woman, ready to stand by herself,
Independent and free...
That's what I thought, too.