The Disney Poem

I'm going to update this post when I'm not exhausted but I wanted to get this poem up now. I felt like it's been a long time since I wrote a mushy gushy love poem. I also wanted to write a longer slam poem than usual. So here's the combination of those two. Straight up for now. I'll probably make edits and add photos soon. In the mean time, let me know what you think and enjoy!

The Disney Poem [Tentative Title]

When I was a kid and I woke up with a headache and a sore throat I used to smile. Not because I was a masochist or some delirious mess but because it meant that I didn’t have to get dressed and go to school. That fever was a reliever from any and all scholarly grievances. It meant that I’d get to spend the entire day in my dinosaur pajamas eating banana popsicles.

But best of all, it meant that after my buddy Bob Barker had shown me which price was right, I would crack open an over-sized plastic case from the stack and slide that black video-tape into the VCR. I would hum along to When You Wish Upon a Star and watch the blue glow of that glorious castle logo. I would discover something even more exciting than any showcase showdown: the wonder of believing in true love.

And it didn’t matter if I was sifting through Agrabah’s sands or peering across the Pride Lands or watching the ocean under Triton’s hands because nothing evaporated my cold like a shot of unadulterated, hand-drawn and animated romance straight to the heart. And sure, at the moment, maybe I was too young to start believing in love or too old to keep believing in happily ever after or maybe I really was a little delirious but I took it all seriously. I took it all to heart.

And now that I’m older, I know it might sound stubborn to look back on those films and pretend they were holders of some grain of truth. I’ve been told that I should listen to the cries rising from those other sick kids who once stayed home from school but no longer think it’s cool to believe love can be magic. Who’ve instead built up ramparts to guard their hard hearts from cupid’s arrows. Who now watch so narrowly for any threat on the horizon that they’ve moved their eyes from the skies and no longer see the stars handcrafted for wishing upon.

They tell me instead of being a hopeful romantic that I should love to a reasonable degree. That I’ll see it’s safer that way. But to them I say, I don’t want to be reasonable. Not if reason means refusing to believe in the grandeur of love that comes from wearing your heart on your sleeve.

See, I don’t want to love you in a reasonable fashion. I want to love you like Aladdin loved Jasmine. I want to be given the opportunity to wish for anything in the entire world and instead spend it on impressing a girl. I want to look you in the eyes and feel like the rug’s shot right out from under my feet. Like falling for you is like falling onto a magic carpet. Like you are my whole new world.

I want to love you like Simba loved Nala. I want to be able to see you after years of being away and feel no need to say a word because you’ve never left my heart. Like no scar or worry is enough to stop me from feeling the love tonight. As if your love could make light all those troubles and elephant skeletons in my closet. With you by my side, I’d have no need to hide, I’d laugh in the face of them.

I want to love you like Eric loved Ariel. I want to risk burial at sea just for a chance to be there with you beneath the waves. Like grottos and caves turn into amphitheaters and all the creatures are singing at me to kiss the girl. I want to love you like I would abandon my kingdom and become a surf bum if it meant getting a chance to hear you sing or even hum.

So feel free to call me corny or overdramatic, I’ve had it all thrown my way before. But down to my core, I’ll never stop believing in that kind of romance. The type that changes the hero’s life with one song and dance. And yeah, maybe striving for that kind of love is unrealistic, I’m only setting up for pain when I fall and that ends up making me masochistic after all.

But I want to believe all those naysayers are wrong. I want to believe that love still has enough magic to not only cure the common cold but keep the heart from freezing over.

-Ben