In our little store,
My parents and my siblings,
Lived and worked.
But there must be more than
Living and dying in this village.
When the prince comes
From another land,
With symbols on
His cloak I have never seen,
He has what I crave, the ability to
Go somewhere else;
Be someone bigger.
But his eyes never follow me,
They follow her;
After all, a prince should marry a princess.
Her beauty puts the stars to shame.
How can someone as ordinary
As me
Steal her extraordinary beauty?
The princess finds solace
In me,
Away from her royal duties;
She sneaks out whenever she can
To meet me.
So when I ask her to meet me in the forest,
She is excited
That we get to meet again.
In her food, my poison goes.
Later, in the middle of the night,
I pay someone to skin her.
The kingdoms mourns for its
Lost princess.
A couple of moons later,
A sorceress stitches her skin to me;
I look beautiful.
I return to the village,
My parents seemed to mourn me:
I cannot stay with them
In their tiny store.
So I walk past them,
Towards the castle,
The kingdom rejoices
At their lost princess
Being found.
The princess told me
As she grew up
She was raised
As a princess,
Not a person.
As if she had any right
To complain
When she doused in beauty from the heavens
And was able to go
Outside of the kingdom.
I didn't sympathize
With her;
I didn't care about her,
Only her position.
She is more than a mere villager.
I should have cared.
After a few nights of being coddled,
The palace placed me under scrutiny
And intense training.
Now I see why she used to sneak out so frequently.
I meet the prince again,
He seemed just as loving and caring.
The king decided to marry me off to him
To form an alliance
In the case of war.
I finally get to travel outside of the kingdom;
I am now a queen.
When I arrived in the new kingdom,
I was cared for and all my wishes were granted...
Until I gave birth to a girl,
One, twice, and three times.
After the fifth time,
The caring prince ignored me
And if he did talk to me
It was to scrutinize me.
Later, he sent an assassin
To kill me;
My chance of giving him
A male heir had reached its limit.
As I lay in a pool of my own blood
I thought:
I wasn't treated as a person,
But a vessel to bear him heirs.
I wish I could go back;
My family didn't have much,
But at least I was treated like
A person,
And not a position.
I'm sorry princess,
I should have cared about you.
After all, a princess is still a slave to her kingdom.
Comments