The Ugly Duckling’s Fate

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they worship

aesthetic transformation—

a Princess Diaries reveal:

frizzy mop, smudged glasses

tamed and slicked

into silky crown, painted eye frames.

the ugly duckling

blooming into swan.


but what if the swan

was always her beginning—

unpolished, unbidden?


at the irony, my frayed eyes can’t help but sigh—

don’t they realise the ugly duckling

was the swan, all along?


in her bold, brash, waddling defiance,

in her wisdom, her weight,

her raw breath—unravelled, unlaced.


but they inscribed control under the mask of evolution.

an imposed metamorphosis

mistold as becoming—

a chrysalis carved to constrain, not to release.


to be loved, she blurred her silhouette,

whitewashed into a filtered mirage,

a polished vase—admired by all,

but estranged from her own wellspring.


to be seen, she had to vanish—

isn’t that the softest violence

of the ugly duckling’s fate?






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