Goblin King (You Have No Power Over Me)

There he goes- the Goblin king- or perhaps I shouldn’t credit him so? But I’ve run short on metaphor as I’ve named the beast as many times. He troubles me, this manly demon and will not abate. He walks these halls as if they belong to him but only one man may lay legal claim here and You are not him, good sir. No, you are not him. You think yourself slick, sneaking about shadows, hiding behind your sicky sweet smile. Offering the appealing fruit of friendship- how shall I tell friend from foe?

From your cubby hole, tucked around some corner, yet always watching, walking the grounds, inspecting all, an overlord with worn-out and weary soles- snatching up babes in their sleep or maybe, more realistically, just arguing with brick walls as you like to do. What’s that I smell? A fierce scent that rides the wind- the poison that pours from a broken man. Careful, don’t breathe it in!  Or perhaps merely the bog of eternal stench. They’ll be no bargain had here, sir. No quid pro quo of my sanity for your vanity.

I have this faint memory of ‘Labyrinth’ the movie, as a small child. My older cousin played it for those of us who were younger. Then he and the older boys chased us out in the woods in the dark. We squealed and screeched and ran as children do. It scared me half to death as I was prone to nightmares and easily frightened. For months I cried, “What if a goblin is waiting for me in the dark? In this corner? Or under my bed?” Silly how, I see you and remember that image now as an adult and laugh to myself.

Your ears might as well be pointed, pointed as the sharp edges of your foul words. Your face crucified in the abject ugliness of an otherworldly creature spawned of imagination. Mimicking children’s fairy tale magic, you think you have power over me- as strong men often have but thanks to a woman’s midlife crisis and hormones galore, they have no longer. I see you. I see you in truth- a pebble in my shoe, an annoyance to stamp out or better yet toss by the wayside but what I will not do is fear you. Do you hear me?

You have no power over me!

So why do your irksome words tire me so? Tired skirting beneath skins, down to soul and brittle of my weary bones? Off with her head! Toss it round, juggle it about- my patience, my last nerve, just dump them all out. No! Stop giving him power over you. How shall I put myself back together, the narrator asks? And yet I always do. How many more times do I have left in me? That I couldn’t say. But where once was timidity hunkering down in the dark, I am a lady brought to birth audacity. I’d not suggest testing me.    

Even so, I get a sharp pang of stress listening to those smirked words drenched in that salty distasteful male ego. Mind you, I’m not one of those man-hating women but you, would-be man, would-be goblin- you bring out that side of me. The one that’s spiteful and hateful. The one I’d rather not see. So, then, go ahead, give it your worst. Dance with your pointed shoes. Call on heaven and hell. Cast your chauvinistic, callous-hearted spells. Act like you own the place. Because, dear sir, I am over it. I do not fear you.

You have no power over me.