My Pony Days- Hand-made Collage

You wouldn't know it by looking at me now, but back during my pony days I was something to behold. I had a beautiful blonde mane that I would toss back and forth to make the young girls swoon. I was only too happy to be fed a steady diet of flattery and sugar cubes. I refused to canter with the herd for fear that it would loosen the bright blue bow tied around my tail. If on occasion a straw hat festooned with flowers was placed upon my head, well it only affirmed that I was no ordinary little horse.

Alas, it was not vanity that was my undoing, but adolescence. At the age of three, my lyrical whinny turned into a unexpected deep neigh. That it should happen the first time in front of a group of children made it all the more mortifying. Daily my body underwent changes I did not understand. I spent hours by the pond looking down at my ungainly form—all tall legs and long face—mystified by what had befallen me. I struggled to get back to the pony I had been. Try as I might to fit it, I could not deny the obvious: I towered over the rest of the herd. Now, it was their turn to exclude me. "Don't you think you'd be happier at the rodeo or something," they'd mock. No longer the object of anyone's affection, I was only too happy to escape the farm, even if it meant hitched to a cart. In time, I reconciled myself to my new body and learned to accept an extra feedbag of oats or the occasional carrot as the most affection an honest workhorse could expect. Although I never had another sugar cube and I'm no longer what you'd call "a looker" at least I still have a full set of teeth. Which is more than I can say for the rest of those ponies. Hi ho!