He showed her the world.

Shinning, simmering,

was it splendid?

He asked her where

has she come from,

Where did she want to go?

 

The Princess smiled and said

“just go.” And so he went,

he took her to places she has never seen,

unbelievable sights.

She felt the nausea rising in her lungs.

“Don’t you dare close your eyes,”

he says. As the smell formulates,

tumbling in her lungs.

 

A thousand things to see,

and she can barely hold her breath.

He takes her to another part of his city,

and she feels the puncture of a shooting star

rustling in her cheeks.

 

Its gone.

The contents of her stomach splurges before her,

“there is time to spare,” he says. But

she cannot take it.

The world beyond the castle is far more than she ever

dreamed.

 

Whoever told her of fancy

woodmen did not tell her they torture children,

or the millers who rape young girls.

Whoever told her of nice merchants

selling seashells by the seashore forgot to mention

the glass that they used to paint their murals

is stained red from the children’s feet.

 

The world of freedom for this naïve princess,

became a world of poverty? The skin-boned children

bounce around a rusted soccer ball

kicking the contraption with their discolored feet.

The mother of two, looks thirteen, and she is dragged along

by her husband three times her age.

The bruising of the children and the sunken swollen eyes

drag into her skeleton like

vision.

 

The hairless cat nibbles at the recent,

unreported lost kid who remains still,

the pain unregistered.

 

The prince showed the truth of this world,

And still he asked her to join.

She wipes her lips and repents her wishes.

 

A thrilling chase,

A wondrous place,

For you and never me.