poetry
Fairest One
by Sophia Zhao in Issue Twenty-Two, February 2026
(After Snow White)
the night Mama decides
she can wait no longer,
she forces me to my knees
before my reflection,
teaches me my first prayer:
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
who in this land is fairest of all?”
the mirror does not answer,
but Mama promises, presses
her shriveled lips
upon my untamed flesh:
“beauty demands
more than mere prayer, demands
more than you can give,
and my dear, my child,
my darling little monster,
you will understand
when I am gone”
and I know Mama knows best
after He, eyes fair
beneath a crown of gold,
presents to her a pair
of iron shoes,
a pit of burning coal,
and an invitation to dance—
gifts she who was once
fairest of them all,
reduced now to blood, ash,
and withered skin
could never refuse,
and I know Mama knows best
after He, crowned He,
sees me for the first time, says:
“no one can compare,”
after He comes, slips
into slush slickened slumber
do you dream
do you dream
do you dream
and I slip out of His arms,
wrapped tight, restless
in sleep,
I no longer dream
sometimes I lose my name sometimes
my face I don’t recognize my reflection
tells the tale of an angel, fair lady
of the heavenly skies, trapped
beneath the rind of a monster,
“my dear, my child,
my darling little monster”
—the glass speaks and I
fall to my knees
before the mirror,
pray,
forgive me Mama,
for I did not
understand then,
just so He, fair He, will wake
and say: “You, my queen,
are the fairest of all”
my last confession was a night
ago and I hear you now
across the glass.
//
once upon a time, in the middle of winter,
when snowflakes were falling
like feathers from the sky,
I tried to save you
who were
born from my prayers,
my flesh, my blood—
a beautiful queen was sitting
and sewing at a window with an ebony frame
and as she was sewing and looking
out the window at the snow, she pricked
her finger with the needle, and three
drops of blood fell on the snow the red looked so beautiful
on the white snow that she thought to herself
to know beauty
is to know sacrifice,
is to know all He demands
and you—
white as snow, red
as blood, black as wood—
you have never known
the fair eyes
beneath a crown of gold,
as they scour you
damn you,
centimeter by centimeter
layer
after
layer
until you,
searching for yourself
beneath the glass,
are no longer
you
but the apple never falls
far from the tree,
so I warn you now:
the pain, it never goes away
the pain, it becomes you for
beauty demands
more than mere prayer, demands
more than you can give,
and when you,
my dear, my child,
my darling little monster,
when your hair
has thinned
like the groping limbs
of an oak, crippled
by the northern wind,
when your skin
has withered
like sandpaper
rasping against
shattered stone,
when your lips
have shriveled
like an apple
left far too long
beneath the sun,
you too, will
hear my voice across the glass,
you too, will
know Mama knows best.
© 2026 Sophia Zhao
Sophia Zhao
Sophia Zhao (she/her) is a writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Uncharted Mag, and The Colored Lens, among others. You can usually find her being a very bad New Yorker, or here, for that matter.