To Zelda

I know you.

I’ve seen your face, all starlight shining

staring back at me,

Behind a mind’s mirror maybe.

i see you illuminated as black ink on a page of a story you made.

But the book was always stamped by his name.

They say f. Scott took whole pages of your diaries

Rewrote characters to invoke you

As the legendary muse he put in

Nude bathing suits & made her a starry-eyed fool.

They must have said “what sort of magic can make a man

see through the eyes of a woman so elegantly”,

You illuminated so much & maybe it did not dawn on him

That He took you, took the particles sparking from you

And he called you His. thing.

There is something so condescending in term “muse”.

Some may consider it an honor, but really it’s really just a way

To objectify And therefore minimize a contributor.

But we know we’re all infused with unseen muses.

We’re created by others. Maybe the music infused you, too.

Zelda, I wonder what that resentment will do to a mind

How moonlighting as a creator

may look like gaslighting in retrospect.

When you keep wondering if this grand illusion

Indicates your crazies

He says yes. They say yes.

Just accept that your work published under his name

Is worth quadruple the profit.

But you are beloved a maker,

You may be A face they will never see truly.

But zelda,

Although he sold your work as his own

took your spark & lit up high school english classes

Some know of your fire.

Some will remember how you burned

& took down whole institutions with you.

(Heather Dora, 2016)