The Princess Saves Herself in this One (Women Are Some Kind of Magic #1) by Amanda Lovelace

"Ah, life- the thing that happens to us while we're off somewhere else blowing on dandelions & wishing ourselves into the pages of our favorite fairy tales."

A poetry collection divided into four different parts: the princess, the damsel, the queen, & you. the princess, the damsel, & the queen piece together the life of the author in three stages, while you serves as a note to the reader & all of humankind. Explores life & all of its love, loss, grief, healing, empowerment, & inspirations.

Format: ebook
Narrator: n/a
Performance: n/a
Story: 🌑🌑🌓

When I was a teenager, I wrote my share of bad poetry. I didn't know it yet at that time because I didn't know I had it but it was my way of dealing with depression. All the usual hits were there, the gloom-and-doom verses, the I-hate-myself, I-want-to-die chorus, the god-doesn't-exist refrain and the I'm-so-ugly coda. Reading this book of poems reminded me of that time when I filled notebook upon notebook of verses I scream behind my silent stoic facade. Looking back, I could laugh at myself for being so damn emo. I wish I knew what happened to those notebooks.

I am pretty sure Amanda Lovelace had stacks of notebooks filled to the brim. The Princess Saves Herself in this One covers a lifetime of what appears to be struggles with depression, anorexia and some mum issues. There are opposing views as to whether 'scattering words on different lines' is considered poetry or not. For me it's not really the scattering of lines but it's more like these things looked like photo captions or tumblr quotes, the kind I try to shoo away from my dash but tumblr insists on showing. There's no debate, the emotions are indeed powerful but I expect things to be a little more substantial verse-wise. 

The last section "You" was the part I liked the most. This is where the author got away from talking about herself to focusing on bigger things like social justice (also very tumblr-ish).  Best one below:

raid your library.
read everything
you can get your
hands on
& then
some.
go on,
collect words
& polish them up
until they shine
like starlight
in your
palm.
make words
your finest weapons—
a gold-hilted sword
to cut your
enemies
d
o
w
n.

- a survival plan of sorts.

I also don't understand why girls want to be princesses. From what I have read in history books, princesses are usually just pawns married off to some aging stranger to secure political gain. I hope girls have better aspirations than this, like being a Konoha ninja, steampunk inventor or captain of the Enterprise. You can do all that and still look pretty.  The possibilities are endless.

SOUNDTRACK

 Renegade Princess

Sonic Youth
NYC Ghost & Flowers

Jet black hair
Tangled stare
Blood inside
Silent stare
Naked heart
Red light night
Tangled heart
Midnight hair
Poor mans bride
Moonlight fight
Renegade
Crystal heart

Make way for the midnight princess
Midnight princess fight tonight
Renegades fight for life
Naked stairs in the midnight rain
Gonna fight for yr blood tonight
Crystal hearts gonna break you down
Tangled hearts in a midnight fight
Renegade princess fight
Fight

https://www.azlyrics.com