Poisoned Apples Quotes

“If you find the dividing line between fairy tales and reality, let me know. In my mind, the two run together, even though the intersections aren't always obvious. The girl sitting quietly in class or waiting for the bus or roaming the mall doesn't want anyone to know, or doesn't know how to tell anyone, that she is locked in a tower. Maybe she's a prisoner of a story she's heard all her life- that fairest means best, or that bruises prove she is worthy of love.”
― Christine Heppermann, Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty

“Nature Lesson

The dress code says
we must cover ourselves
in
ample pants,
skirts that reach well below
our lascivious knees,
polos buttoned over
the rim of the canyon,
a glimpse of which can send a boy
plunging to such depths
he may never climb back up
to algebra.

We say
that if a hiker strays
off the path, trips, and
winds up crippled,
is it really the canyon's fault?”
― Christine Heppermann, Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty

“But here's a great thing about stories: they can be retold.”
― Christine Heppermann, Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty

“How stupid that all I have to do
is grow two squishy lumps and suddenly
I'm man's best friend”
― Christine Heppermann, Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty

“And those women were sneaky. They understood that including fantastical elements in their tales- golden eggs, signing harps, talking frogs- worked to mask a deeper purpose....it made the stories look on the surface like 'a mere bubble of nonsense' within which it was possible to 'utter harsh truths, to say what you dare' about the state of women's lives. Because they were just stories, right? Harmless little fantasies?”
― Christine Heppermann, Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty

“You can lose your way anywhere.”
― Christine Heppermann, Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty

“No need for a bunch of trees.
You can lose your way anywhere.”
― Christine Heppermann, Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty

“Gingerbread
I knew I had to get out of there
before the icing cracked and they discovered
that I'm burnt around the edges,
doughy in the center,
that what they thought was sugar
is salt.

If I was a good girl,
if I could satisfy their cravings,
if every dream in my misshapen head
didn't bite, I might have stayed at the table.

Wouldn't you run, too,
from such voracious love?”
― Christine Heppermann, Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty

“Rubenesque: the word for masterpiece curves. Screw you, unsalted rice cakes.”
― Christine Heppermann, Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty

“What the miller's daughter should have said
from the start
or at any point down the line is,
no.”
― Christine Heppermann, Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty

“Once there was a girl who longed to be brave enough to stick her finger down her throat, to measure herself by the teaspoon, to shrink to the size of a serving. Once”
― Christine Heppermann, Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty

“The Anorexic Eats a Salad Mountains rise, fall, rise again. Stars complete their slow trek into oblivion. A snail tours the length of China’s Great Wall twice. All those pesky cancers—cured. Somewhere in Lower Manhattan, a barista finally smiles. Roundworms evolve into ovals. Flatworms get chesty. Molasses, a tortoise, and sedimentation run the fifty-yard dash. Results pending. Temps plunge in hell. The devil waxes his skis. She has almost made it through her first bite.”
― Christine Heppermann, Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty