Her tentacles granted her banishment

Her short frizzy hair bestowed isolation upon her

Her dark eyes gave her agony

Her plump face awarded her with oppression

 

As Ursula looks out from her cave of empty spells she can see the glow

The glow of the kingdom ruled by shiny crowns and tiaras

Where shells are glorified

Smoke pipes are inspirational

All hollow just the same

 

The royals sit on top of their golden palace with authority as powerful as their faux beauty

And as wicked as their interior

The same wickedness that condemned Ursula

With a lift of their slender dictating finger

She was stripped of her title as a doctor

 

Her will to help others was now deemed as manipulation

Her medicine now considered dark sorcery  

Everything Ursula once had was now but a distant memory

Nothing left in her cauldron to give but the soft murmurs of incantations

 

 

Ursula examines her surroundings like she did a million times before

Studying the sharp threatening rocks above her

Tracing her finger along the marks she engraved into the stone

Reminding her of each day she spent imprisoned by her own fears

She slides her palm across the blank canvas of stone

It mocks her by concealing the number of marks she has left to carve

 

Her shelves filled with antidotes

Each bottled soldier aligned and ready to serve the innocent

The liquid army stands still as they shut their eyes in anguish

Shielding themselves from their cruel reality

Scarred not by war but by being forced to watch the honest civilians suffer

Wincing at the thought of how they could have protected them

They know how to cure them, they can help

But they realize that they will stay trapped in their eternal glass prison

Pure torture

 

Ursula often thinks of how things could have been

How she could save the city

How she could rid the citizens of suffering

The streets would be cleared of the muck that accumulated over the years

Clean as the gold painted buildings that look down on its peasants

Poverty-stricken people would not have to fear the grips of iron chains

And the cold cement floor of a dungeon for not being able to pay heavy taxes

That are pushed on them by the shiny crowns and tiara

Everything that could have been

If only Ursula felt the kiss of the crown on her head

If only she could wield the indestructible triton in her hand

If only she had the power to guide the city

If only Ursula were pretty

 

Long lashes are not needed to be kind

Pointed noses do not indicate honesty

Intelligence does not come with small hips

So why does “pretty” determine one’s worth?

Why did Ursula’s features make her a monster in the kingdom’s eyes?

If mirrors reflected ones’s personality, who would be the true monster?

 

Still Ursula frowns at her reflection

Wishing she had the face of a princess

She doesn’t see herself

The kingdom treated her like a beast

Tauned her with harsh names

Until she could only see through the kingdom's narrow lens

A beast staring back

 

If only she could see that

Her tentacles granted her courage

Her short frizzy hair bestowed freedom upon her

Her dark eyes gave her passion

Her plump face awarded her with a heart of a loving queen

But none of it matters in the kingdom ruled by shiny crowns and tiaras