V: Happy Endings

Ever felt they've sold you down the river?
Annexed your most secret dreams?
The ones you kept clutched close;
the tantalising us beyond the me?

Ever watched your longing flattened
to a lightshow, sweetened up
with incidental music, shoved
behind a lens thick-smeared with Vaseline?

Or have you pushed aside the paperback
at night, in bed, and stared
at nothing, at an empty wall,
steamrollered by a happy ending?

Sadly, to yourself, confessed
you're not the type to trip headlong
into the light fantastic? - to lock eyes,
believing you won't look away?

Have you refused, at last, to hope
that frogs and princesses are true?
Realised the story wasn't
and will never be for you?

Listen!
This is important. I know.

And you
are wrong.