What do you know about Rapunzel?
Here’s what I heard: her father trades her to a witch after dad stole from her garden to feed his wife’s (Rapunzel’s mother’s) pregnancy cravings. Rapunzel grows up imprisoned in a tower, and the only way in or out for anyone else is her hair, which grows so long and thick that she would toss it down as a rope for the witch to climb.
A prince hears the witch call
Rapunzel!
Rapunzel!
Let down your hair!
And does the same. He climbs up her hair. He and Rapunzel fall in love. The furious witch lops off Rapunzel’s braid. The next time the prince calls,
Rapunzel!
Rapunzel!
Let down your hair!
The witch lets him climb up on the severed hair, but when the prince sees her instead of Rapunzel, he jumps out of the tower, into thorns that blind him. He wanders the world, unable to see. Eventually, during his travels, he recognizes Rapunzel singing, and the two lovers reunite.
–> When I heard this story as a kid, the most important part was the blind prince. I needed glasses since I was six years old. Going blind was my greatest fear. I skipped straight over the tower, imprisonment, people climbing up my hair, and worried about losing my eyesight.
However, as an adult, I reread the story and was shocked that in some versions, Rapunzel and the prince have sex. When Rapunzel gets cast out, she ends up wandering the desert WITH TWINS. Not as bad as losing your eyesight, but no one would choose that fate lightly, either.
To go from a lifelong prisoner to her first sexual (? consensual) relationship to a solo twin mom in the desert? Ooh.
I decided to write about Rapunzel in this liminal space. On Spec published it (#122 VOL 32 No 4), and now, Canada, you may vote on it for the Prix Aurora Award until July 29th, 2023. For $10, you get a whole package of material. Join here and vote here. Thanks for your consideration!
Rapunzel in the Desert
by Melissa Yuan-Innes
I
My once-soft hands
Roughened by sand and wind
My breasts, continually swollen and emptied
By ravenous twin mouths
My eyes, gritty with still more sand and wind.
Still, I sing and weave
Trading for rice and dates
And the occasional bite of camel or lamb.
II
Mother Godel sheared my head.
Now I pluck the hairs myself
To make strong, fine sewing threads
Or to plait into sturdy belts or ropes
My voice, I raise in song
For the mother fatigued by hours of labour,
For the couple joined in ceremony,
Or for the soul laid to rest.
III
I trade my story to fellow-travellers.
“That tower! No stairs or doors.
Yes, my cousin told me of such a tower!”
They know of my prince who came.
“So sad. He jumped to his doom.”
“No, no. He lost the sight in both eyes and wanders,
Calling for you.”
A third jumps in. “No, he married a princess.
Of course her hair is not so fine as yours.”
My children learn to walk.
Their skin is stained blue by the clothes
Of their adopted people.
I continue to sing, to weave, to laugh and cry.
I am not the first woman to love and lose her prince
With only two new hungry mouths to show for it.
And yet my heart expands.
Instead of the stone walls of my tower,
I breathe the dry desert wind
And lift my eyes to the wide open sky.
