Brave girl,

What happened to your sword?

 

Did you believe him when he spoke with words of gold that twined around your head in the cold weight of a crown?

You are used to iron, and ore, the blunt and sharp all at once.

Not the carefully crafted and engraved words he told you, as your tower was built brick by brick.

He spoke them like poetry, but they were memorized because he didn’t want a brave girl, he wanted a broken girl.

And I am sorry that he didn’t learn, you can’t break a brave girl.

He built the tower, but he is not all to blame, because, in your doubt, you listened to the lies they all spun.

And you hefted the last stones, trapping you inside an oblivious darkness.

But as you sat inside that tower, silk like cold hands on your skin, did you believe him then?

As you waited inside your dark stone prison, wearing silk and surrounded by pillows too soft for comfort, for a prince to save you, did you wonder?

And did you realize that you were a brave girl?

That you felt the weight of the crown, but it was heavier than it should have been?

Because what you felt, brave girl was the pushing and pressing of all the dark and suppressed thoughts that fester underneath that roof.

The doubts and insecurities and the unsubmissive rebelling of your inner self.

Brave girls don’t bow. They stand, tall, and even alone. Brave girls don’t break. They bend and bend until they think they are broken, but they are not.

And while you scratched at the sides of that stone tower, until your fingernails bled and you begged to be let out, did you realize that everyone said he was your prince?

Did you realize that your prince locked you away because it was the only way to make you submissive, to make you break, and to make you fearful?

So when you took the heavy crown from your head and flung it across the room, did you realize you could escape?

You ripped the cushions apart, only to find that you had true friends.

Because in the heart of the things you despised, you found a hammer.

A dull, small and broken hammer.

And you worked.

The crown became a sword, which you held above your head once you kicked down the walls of the tower that you loathed.

And you screamed with every atom in your body quivering with your power.

“I am a brave girl. I bend, I do not break. I stand, even if alone, but I do not bow. I will rebel until my breath leaves the cage of my ribs, and I will fight until my bones explode with combustion, but I will not be defeated. You did not break me. You did not make me submissive. Because in that dark and foul tower, that I helped build with my own callused hands as my head swam with doubts, I found myself. And you can never take away her.”

And when you screamed, your voice raw and powerful and sad and strange and hoarse and strong……..and brave, your prince rode away.

He grabbed his thin sword, and his shield, and mounted a horse.

And he rode away, after saying, “You will regret the moment you rebelled against being a true princess.”

But you never will, because you were never a princess.

You are a queen, a warrior, a brave girl who rebels against the words of those who wish to see her trapped in another tower, away from the kingdom that is rightfully yours.

And brave girl, I don’t think he ever was your prince.

Because real princes don’t try to place a crown upon your head and mold you to their will.

They give you a crown, knowing you won’t need it, and a sword, knowing you already know what to do.

He was never a real prince, only a foolish knight who sought to a break a girl, who could never be broken, because she was brave.