You Might Be a Goblin

-If you attempt to straighten your desk, and find an empty gin bottle full of dead daffodils and spider webs.

-If your favorite animal is a frog or a toad: the wartier the better.

-If at a fine restaurant, you ask for the charcuterie appetizer, but no crackers, just cheese, and the stinkiest varieties they have please.

-If you aren’t chatty, and tend to talk more to moss, frogs, and trees than people.

-If you miss the smell of your own signature stench when you’ve first showered, no matter how perfumed and pretty the soap might be.

-If the best bag is the one with lots of space and compartments for collecting.

-If you preferred to play the tree stumps and snails in school plays to the “lead roles.”

-If the smell of peat and bog, moss and petrichor appeal more to you than ocean breezes and fresh flowers.

-If you catch your winged flower faerie friends making shifty eyes at your boxes and baskets of rocks and shinies when they visit your home.

-If you dress more for pockets and comfort than style or “pretty.”

-If the description of all your favorite candles have the word “musk” somewhere.

-If David Bowie is your Goblin King. Even if he is a little too pretty and clean.

I used to write checklists for Enchanted Living in each issue, and darned if I don’t miss it. It’s something I naturally do anyway as a list maker.

Thanks to Desireé for the inspiration. The first checklist point came from a conversation between her, myself, and Bryonie Arnold. From there, my imagination took over! This was a delight to write.

Daffodils photo by Desireé, all other art by the faerie king, Brian Froud.