Once upon a time...

Once upon a time, so very long ago, there lived a beautiful princess, who wept her heart dry. Crystal tears of sorrow forever stained her lovely face, collecting in a glossy pool by her little, cringing toes. She had tried everything to make them stop, but they took no heed to her painstaking efforts, gushing forth to kiss her rosy cheeks again and again. Damp and glistening, she subdued to their torrential pour, blinking away blurry visions of something different, somewhere far, far away. 

She whimpered a mute sound into the ether, curling into ball of pain, her once luscious locks limply splayed on the dank dirt, merging with their dull, singed colours. Her once shining eyes were faded to a pale vision, and her pearly skin had withered a thousand years. Her every limb ached, as she unfurled gently, splaying her boney fingers, only to bring them back in clenched fists. The tenderness she had once lovingly nurtured grew no more. Stunted with shock, parched, and wilted, it had been weeded cruelly by its roots, not one trace left to remember it by.

 Is this the rightful end for a princess, who knew not the pleasures of seducing laughter, and pretty little things? Was it fair that she embraced a life of torture, rather than delightful songs? Where was her prince in shining armour, when she wept herself to decay? These queries stabbed her repeatedly, sharp and jagged, as she bled alive. She feebly begged to be released from this wicked game that she was caught up in, gasping for air through muffled pleas...but sweet escape coldly shunned her , yet again. 

Drowning only deeper by the second, she cried out in vain, her voice choked in woe, her heart blue with damage. But not a sound was heard beneath the layers of smothering distress that disguised her soul. She stopped trying soon after this; grating frustration had now turned old and grey. Hope had fizzled away like a scorned lover, too scared to ask for a second chance. 

She is now but a distant memory; her quaking suffering merely a sad story. People now just sigh in her memory as they walk away, shaking their heads with false pity, as they whisper to one another, “Once upon a time, so very long ago, there lived a beautiful princess...”.