She could stand their glances no longer.
Bowing and curtsying to her
without genuine respect,
going through the motions
because of her father, mother, or elder brother.
She was just another being
who took up space and breathed the air.
They bowed to her and hurried away,
without thought to her dreams
or the sense of duty weighing heavily on her head.
All they saw was the circlet of silver in her ebony hair.
She was just a signifier, a face standing in court,
a young child protected by everyone in the country.
They thought she did not care for them.
The youngest was just the child who was spoiled,
without care, and was blind to everything around her.
“Do you want flowers to perfume your room,
to weave into your hair?”
Such shallow questions
for the lady they thought was shallowness itself.
She presented herself in public, did her duties.
Yet, her spirit and heart suffered
from the image her people cemented in their own minds.
All they saw was the circlet of silver in her hair.
Those stuck up servants with their noses in the air
bowed only as low as they deemed adequate,
offered another one of their imposed questions
that assumed they knew what she wanted.
They assumed too much, for they did not notice
the circlet weighed heavy on her brow.
They assumed it was light, granting dreams and liberty.
They were wrong. It was a cage, a shackle to her very existence…
tears slipped down her cheeks.
She tore the circlet of silver from her hair,
and it shattered on the ground.
orig. by D'Layna Blauvelt
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