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  • Writer's pictureArtful 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.




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