Put Yourself in Cinderella's shoes

        Autumn curls her toes in the murderous morning's frost and decay, her leaves embroidered with Jack Frost's needlepoint. I set out along the path remembering the feel of shale and shell beneath my feet from that first Summer when we had crunched hand in hand along the sand but it all seems so distant now. Now as I walk the path I feel the emptiness by my side, the ice cracking beneath the heal of my boot, the crust on a creme brûlée. As a child I remember the joy of puddle jumping on these ice-glass surfaces, the innocent destruction that brought a sense of power: to crush the sheet to tiny glass-like shards and watch the splinters spin off across the slippery surface. Now all I see is how brittle things are, the ice veneer a mirror on our own reality, so thin, so easily broken.
         It is a while since I have taken this path through the woods and I do not remember where it leads but I know I must follow it, put some distance between us and our latest dispute. I find I can forgive more easily as the miles extend between us and time serves to bandage my heart.  I must lose myself to find myself, talking sternly all the way. Time to stand on your own two feet Cinderella. Why was that not the moral of the fairytale I want to scream? Can I not make a happy ending of my own? But having never been taught to believe in myself, to be enough,  I was bound by fairytale law to rely on you to bring my happy ever after. I am a glass slipper girl: I can dance the first dance and cast my enchantment but I have no staying power without your desire. What lies between us is ethereal, we both need to believe in it to make it real. It is hard to believe in magic when surrounded by the utilitarian, day after endless day of chores that stifle spontaneity, one must have hope to make it possible, or a fairy godmother . But I would be lost without you. If I hobble home to you now on lotus feet will you hold my hand, kiss my toes and mend the rift? Make love glitter between us again? I may have one last dance left to share, a last warp and weft of enchantment.