Kingdom

They handed me matches,

And with them, they told me, to let the light guide my way.

But I always said light was for the people who feared the dark.

                And I wasn’t afraid.

Fear was a flaw that I found monotonous and useless.

                I was no princess,

but a knight fighting for the chance to save the world.

Soon, my armor cracked with whispered words, for which I folded inside and built a wall.

                I didn’t think I was afraid.

The wall grew high, wrapped and twisted in translucent sinew,

Reinforced by my blistered raw hands.

I was lost inside myself, crumpling under the weight of my bloody membrane,

                And still I heard the voices, the laughter like needles in my spine.

I raised my sword to their exposed hearts and plunged forward.

It was only as the blood came spilling from my own chest, and I saw the pain inside my veiled eyes

                That I discovered the war inside of me.

                And I had lost, for I could not defeat myself.

And if I couldn’t even save myself, how could I expect to save the world?

My wall fell around me, each blow like the quiet beating of my dying heart.

And I took my blood and a fallen piece of my kingdom and I wrote onto it my existence,

For I could not fear the weakness of being afraid.