Artful Alternatives
The Lost Prince - A Poem
At the end of this fairytale of her thought labyrinth.
In the corner of her mind’s eye maze,
Through this particular cavernous dungeon, at 3am,
She tilts her heavy, sack-like cloak backwards
From behind her darkness
She reveals just half her face,
And for Him only.
An anger bubbles again through pain and tears,
Deep grief he allowed her to show with no judgement.
Her eyes glint in the firelight of the dim torch left burning for him.
A tender glance passing in his direction
But for the last time.
He is too weak to surrender to her gentleness,
Too hardened by choices to even raise his face to her now.
Huddled in a cold and naked ball.
Chained by wrists and ankles to this black stone wall.
Exactly where the Queen of his obsession left him.
And forgot.
He shivers, broken and bruised,
In soul and mind
All the fluids of his spirit
drained from his weakened body
And collecting on the floor
Where he is hunched
As if gifted for the queen‘s token prize.
He aches, but all the relief he can find,
Is to rest his head against hard stone,
As water drips across his freezing skin.
Merging with his discarded salt and grit.
Melting along with his determination.
She understands there is nothing more she can do now
The safe space she holds by this fire
For Him
Will always exist.
But he is stuck.
Now she must avert her gaze
from his self destruction.
Leave him to face his decisions
Finally
And with no pity
For Neither He,
nor She,
ever held hands for that.
She bows her head sadly
And turns away from him once more.
Moving ahead,
the glow from a distant fire still inside.
The one he never truly felt,
But yearned to be near to,
so many times.
She descends again to the grey cloud
behind the cloak of her forgotten anger.
But this is a marvelous darkness,
Which still blinks a light
of deserved warmth and love
And the sweet smell of red roses,
instead of chains
An orchestra of cellos,
instead of silence
Healing instead of pain.
She walks on,
Her Prince awaits.
She still hears him calling across lifetimes.
