An Open Letter to Neil Gaiman

The day I found out what you did

Silver lockets might as well have been

 piles of ash flowing between my fingers

Nothing was beautiful 

in my basement,  I curled up on a beanbag chair full of stuffing 

And slept until it hurt less 

It wasn’t just the assault allegations

Those were pretty bad, sure

It was the quiet whispers and casual mumbles that 

You’d slept with fans 

Young ones

And even if everything was above board, I couldn’t help but think

If I had lined up for hours or run into you in the right kind of club

With padded walls and restraints on the benches

Would you have ignored me because I wasn’t pretty enough

Or worse, paid attention because I was

We are not strawberries to snatch from the roadsides of life 

And now that I am older and past what Orwell called “the wild rose beauty” stage

And I am a rosehip 

If ever I was a rose, which is doubtful

All I can see are the lines and rows of beautiful tough mysterious Fey young women that 

Keep cropping up in your work 

and kept swirling in adoring eddies around your table at conventions 

You knew better 

You had the power 

You could crush any one of them in the palm of your hand 

Who would believe a young nanny over a famous author 

You used to be the person I most wanted to have lunch with 

Now all I want 

Is to write better than you.

I may never be as famous; odds of that are high and stacked against me 

But I can push myself harder and climb higher and feel something deeper 

And if I can’t, well,

I’m at least going to try.