The Princess

By Kaveri Talukder

In our little store,

My parents and my siblings,

Lived and worked.

But there must be more than

Living and dying in this village.

When the prince comes

From another land,

With symbols on

His cloak I have never seen.

He has what I crave, 

The ability to go somewhere else;

Be someone bigger.

But his eyes never follow me,

They follow her;

After all a prince should marry a princess.

Her beauty puts the stars to shame.

How can someone as ordinary 

As me steal her extraordinary beauty?

The princess finds solace in me, 

Away from her royal duties,

She sneaks out whenever she can

To meet me.

So when I ask her to meet me in the forest,

She is excited

That we get to meet again.

...

In her food my poison goes,

Later in the middle of the night,

I pay someone to skin her.

The kingdom mourns for its

Lost princess.

...

A couple of moons later,

A sorceress stiches her skin to me;

I look beautiful.

I return to the village,

My parents seemed to mourn me.

I cannot stay with them

In their tiny store.

So I walk past them,

Towards the castle,

The kingdom rejoices

At their lost princess

Being found.

The princess told me

As she grew up

That she was raised

As a princess,

Not a person.

As if she had any right

To complain

When she was doused in beauty from the heavens

And was able to go outside of the kingdom,

I didn't sympathise

With her,

I didn't care about her,

Only her position.

I should have cared.

After a few nights being coddled,

The palace placed me under scrutiny

And intense training.

Now I see why she used to sneak out so frequently.

I meet the prince again,

He seemed just as loving and caring.

The king decided to marry me of to him

To form an alliance

In the case of war.

I finally get to travel outside of the kingdom.

When I arrived in the new kingdom,

I was cared for and all my wishes granted...

Until I gave birth to a girl,

One, twice and three times.

After the fifth time,

The caring prince ignored me

And if he did talk to me

It was to scrutinise me.

Later he sent an assassin

To kill me;

My chance of giving him

A male heir had reached its limit.

As I lay in a pool of my own blood

I thought:

I wasn't treated as a person,

But a vessel to bore him heirs.

I wish I could go back,

My family didn't have much,

But at least I was treated like

A person,

And not a position.

I'm sorry princess,

I should have cared about you.

After all, a princess is still a slave to her kingdom.

By Kaveri Talukder