Princess

I wear glittering jewels around my neck

Though all they remind me of

Is the weight of such a sour love

A love like rotten cream

That curdled long ago

Under the heat of your hate

Of my innocent wholeness.

So determined to break me

In order to convince yourself

The best cups to drink love out of

Are the ones with jagged edges 

And cracks running around them

Like carefully hand-painted lines made 

By God himself.

But you forget

Cracked glasses puncture this fragile human skin

And draw blood into this cup of love.

But perhaps that is the only kind of love you know

The kind that draws blood

And creates wounds

That fester while you drink slowly 

So assured the wounds do you no harm

Though they turn your skin ghastly colors

And ooze sticky white pus 

While you slap on layer after layer of makeup

All to hide your hideous infections.

So I sit on this throne

Wearing a tiara

Where I yearned to wear a crown.

But even this tiara is made of poisoned thorns

Though you adorned them with exorbitant and exquisite jewels

For which there is no appropriate price

Than this young life

You squeeze in your hands

Like trying to wring water

From a dirty dish towel

Though all I am stained with

Is your ugly hate.

So though they call me many things

I know I am nothing but a slave

Not a Princess

Howling to the high Heavens for deliverance

Though God watches in silence

While you beat the royal blood

Out of this Princess.

Sanaa Mirz

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