Monsters Are Human

63.

i have always had a fondness for the sleeping princess; who saw her fate written in her fingerprints, who was born caged. who had parents who couldn't know her; did not care to look after her. at sixteen she would die; as soon as she could walk they left her.

they called her perfect. what an impossible mantle to rest under. laurels she suffocated to earn. always kind, always obedient, submissive, her voice a fern. she was beautiful and that was all they wrote about her; her personality nothing noted on but for "good". if she wrote poetry, she burned it. the long nights where she stayed up, trying to make herself the littlest bit more beautiful for the parents that never saw her - is this where she grew bone weary. or was it every skipped meal, every ballet lesson she was alone for, every book where the father kisses his daughter and the mother is wise and caring. was it simply that there is too many shadows in the forest.

i have always had a fondness for her wide eyes. for approaching the wheel which was her end and finding herself all full of sad heat, an emptiness, a loneliness. the princess who did not want to be queen. who saw queens as frost giants, out there in the world, uncaring, letting their daughter alone on the eve of her birthday. in the stories, she is tricked. her delicate hands (she wrote books where blood spilled, but tore out the pages before anyone could read them) caress a poison tip.

i wonder if she did it because she was sick of running from it. from following their plot. from being perfect. if here was the one thing her parents had forbid of her: but who were they to her anyway? what if the spindle was not fairy magic; but rather her own. what if this was the rebellion of aurora. when she woke, would it all be different? would her responsibilities and problems melt away along with the darkness?

i, too, yearn for a sleep that i cannot wake from. a dream space. not for the kiss that follows. but for a new world where i am free from all of the things that bind me. a sleep that erases. that covers all my secrets in roses. when i wake, i am finally rested. my heart doesn't sing lullabies to my head. when i wake, there is no prince, no parents, no perfection. it is just me, and a castle of thorns, and for once, i am glad to be alone.