Cut the strings and set me free

Part 2- threads that entangle

In the same way that I didn't recognise myself earlier when I'd looked in the mirror.

The arms retreat, falling away and it's only when the sound of the door shutting do I truly break. Great big heaving sobs and cries that wrack my frame, shuddering as hot tears trail in an endless stream down my cheeks, soaking into the thin chemise, head burrowed into the safety my arms provide, hiding away from the world even for a brief instance.

With each tear comes a cry for the life I was going to live, for the loss of the life I'd wanted, for the loss of the happiness that had been snatched cruelly and far too early from me. With each tear that seeped out from under shut eyelids and trekked down my cheeks was a lament, a grief and a mourning for the girl that would die on her wedding day- no longer the person I used to be, no longer the girl who still clutched onto dreams, onto impossible blind hope that maybe just maybe things could still change.

Duty.

As a sole child. As an heir to the great legacy and lineage of my father's bloodline. As a girl who held only value as a bartering piece, as an object to be traded and placed on a shelf, a trophy to add to someone's dazzling collection.

How long would I shine and dazzle? How long would I be used until I held no more worth? And how long would it be until that spark of hope and life finally flickered out? A dying flame that was engulfed and swallowed and extinguished by the wind, with no-one there to witness my absence, my departure.

And when my body is incapable of producing any more tears, my heart weeps- great thick heavy tears of blood, the essence of life seeping away with each passing tick of the grand clock that adorned the wall. I take the time to grieve for me, to mourn my death, my loss and then I rise to my feet, legs unsteady and wobbling, head spinning and pounding.

I step out of the pile of fabric on the floor, shivering as the cool night air brushes into the room, curtains fluttering as it brings with it a gentle kiss, a cool caress that grazes my skin and leaves it pebbled.

Slow steps I take as I walk towards my bathing room, staring at the ruined mess that greeted me in the full-length mirror. And yet seeing me with a tear-swollen face, red-eyes and hair loosely disarrayed, bare save for the thin chemise and drawers shivering and shaking as I look at myself- for a moment I see me for me. I see the battered, bruised person left behind. The person that cannot survive in such a harsh world and as I strip away each layer of fabric, I leave parts of me behind.

And when I soak into the scalding water- the blistering heat providing a grateful distraction , I draw my knees to my chest, curled around myself protectively, the milky water, rippling before settling. I stay there until the water turns cold, until it no longer gives me that craved warmth, that deluding semblance of being held when everything was falling apart. I sink down into the water, submerging myself, drenching my hair, and wonder for an awfully horrible moment what it would be like to sink into the hold of the water that gently laps at me, cocoons me?

And as I rise back up, water streaming off me I realise that perhaps the permanent coldness that seems to sink into my bones, around me is one that I'll have to become accustomed to, something that is hard to accept even if years have passed since it initially sank in.

I drag myself out, towelling myself dry before reaching for one of my nightgowns, tugging it onto my weary exhausted frame, the cold water from my hair drips steadily into the fabric, soaking into it in a similar manner to how my tears had been absorbed by my chemise. I walk out to head to my bed chamber, sinking into the mattress and several sheets and padded blankets, desperately trying to thaw an icicle that seemed to have driven itself in full force through to my heart, a painful numbness spreading out from the centre. I draw them upto my chest, biting down hard on my lip when the solitude of the night and the glaring emptiness of my rooms bring hurt flooding through me once more.