Let Down Your Hair

Sometimes, love means 

that you will ride two hours time

through the dark and gnarled forest,

branches grabbing at your sleeves

and scratching at your face,

to reach the clearing where 

her tower stands.

And you will wait at the 

foot of the tower while

she uncoils her long amber tresses,

and hurls them out of the window,

singing to herself, while you 

intertwine your fingers in her hair

and spend another hour climbing

up her unraveled curls until 

your palms are raw and your arms

and shoulders ache, and your boots 

are scuffed from digging your 

toes between the rocks of the

tower wall, just so you can

spend a few hours 

in her turret room, talking,

and laughing, and kissing,

until the sun reaches the tips

of the trees, and you have to 

hurry back down her hair

before her mother gets home.

And you will do this every

single day, over and over

and over again even if it means

that one day, when you stand at the 

foot of her tower and cry out, 

Let down your hair! 

It won’t be her waiting at the top,

but her mother, who will sever

her daughter’s hair from her 

head and fling you from the tower,

and you will plummet towards 

the ground and wish you 

hadn’t done any of it

as you feel the sharp 

piercing sting of 

rosethorns in your eyes. 

And sometimes, that’s 

what love means.