Maleficent's Curse Revised; The Wicked Witch of the West by Celia Lisset Alvarez

Maleficent’s Curse Revised

A spindly death at sixteen is not too bad a fate.

What’s there to lose but youth?

What’s there to fear but death?

No, better yet: let her live.

Let her live to be forty-eight.

Let her watch her hair grow gray.

Let her watch her teeth turn brown.

Let her perfect breasts droop down

to her stomach like empty purses.

Let her grow hungry when this happens,

when the prince neglects to touch her.

Let her feed her pretty mouth with cakes

and breads, and sauces made of rendered fat.

Let every time someone looks at her and wonders

what has happened be an occasion for wine,

until her belly grows and grows like a child

that’s never born. Let her legs vein and swell

like thunderheads until she wobbles as she walks.

Let her lie at night under her dusty canopy curtain,

dwelling on her lost beauty.

The Wicked Witch of the West

I’ve got a plan for world domination.

It involves flying monkeys, crystal balls.

Years of plotting and double-crossing.

I know what they say about me—

I’ve given up a lot for this dark army.

My family, relationships. It’s all meant

nothing. They wanted me to settle down.

Instead I shoved my broom between

my legs, made a habit of not washing.

I’ll be damned if I’m going to let

some overgrown little girl from Kansas

worm her way west on some simpering

skipping trek as if home was something

just waiting for you when you wanted it.