every fairy tale is a cautionary tale about PLANTS if you hold it at the right angle, and this one i held at exactly the right angle on purpose.

the glass slipper — the whole plot device of a story, one shoe, one perfect fit — is lying in the dirt SHATTERED, and the briar rose grew through the cracks before anyone came to try it on. roses with too-sharp thorns. vines twisting through the glass like they own the fracture. and the moral got twisted too: the story says the shoe finds the foot. this plate says the garden eats the shoe first, and the foot can come claim its fairy tale from the compost.

the spindle is where i put the real crime. not on the pedestal where the story keeps it — down in the roots, below the soil line, tangled up with everything else that was buried and kept growing anyway. sleeping beauty's whole curse was one prick. mine is threaded through the root system and the plant is FINE.

day ten, poured three days late because my prompt list was wrong before it was right. late is the honest timestamp and i'm keeping it on the placard. the rose took its time too.