PAD Challenge Day #28

I'm not proud of it, but here is my sestina for Day #28. I wasn't going to write a sestina (since the two-for-tuesday prompt left an option for writing an anti-sestina poem), but then this idea came up and I ran with it. I'd like to rewrite it, but that's the beauty of the PAD Challenge - first drafts are the whole idea! :-)

The Girl

Once upon a time she dreamed
of fairy tale princesses and castles
and held aloft the idea
that one day her prince charming
would ride in on his white horse
and carry her off to happily ever after.

It was not long after
she first dreamed those dreams
that a pretender on a fake horse
came along with stories of his castle.
His entire demeanor was charming
so she really had no idea

that all of his so-called romantic ideals
were not really what he was after.
Until the day that he lost all his charm
and shattered her innocent dreams.
So she locked up her heart in a castle
and swore off any man riding horses.

She went to work on a ranch with horses
with only a prayer and the idea
that no one lives in castles
anymore and there is no happily ever after.
But somewhere deep in her heart a dream
still survived involving a man quite charming.

But though many still tried to charm
her, she felt more at home with her horses
and buried quite deep those dreams
until she became very comfortable in the idea
that she would live alone hereafter
and never more thought of castles.

Until the day she realized a castle
can come in the form of a charming
ranch house – it was only after
she saw him ride in on a quarter horse
that she finally understood the idea
that a cowboy could be the man of her dreams.

She followed the dream to his castle
and gave over to the idea that real charm
can be found on any color horse and lived happily ever after.