DISSOLVING

DISSOLVING

The little maiden had been his friend since childhood,
even keeping his head above the surface
that stormy evening when they were shipwrecked.
In those deep azure eyes
swam tears of love, sparkles of passion,
like fish in a koi pond;
yet the prince merely loved her
as a friend or a sister,
self-absorbed in his thoughts, in his studies...
listlessly looking away, with that piercing stare,
his heart frozen into mirror ice,
never letting her hold him tight, 
lest her warmth should thaw his thoughts...
and thus, the words choked in her throat,
and she felt like a two-edged sword right through her...
after all, they were no longer children...
and now they say he's insane
and no longer fit for the throne,
and he stabbed her lord father the Chancellor
before he was sent abroad on that quest...
his back turned to her on the docks, no kissing goodbye,
not kissing her or anyone else goodbye,
ere he set sail that day...
Rosemary for remembrance, rue for regret,
but all the violets have wilted...
though no longer loved, she still loved her prince,
and waited for him while skipping about the halls,
crowned in weeds and wildflowers...
"Should he give his heart away to another,
your own heart will shatter
and you will dissolve into foam."
Last time she was seen,
she went down to the lake,
to kiss a cold-blooded frog into a new prince
who answered her feelings,
or to pick a white lotus from among the lily-pads...
what on Earth was on her mind?
What matters is that she reached out
in the shade of the green willow,
lost her footing,
and, her heavy silks weighing her down,
she plunged inward, like an ondine,
but she never had been an ondine;
icy liquid death streamed into her lungs,
her last precious gasp surfacing,
inside her bobbing flower wreath,
as if her heart, her spark of life, had turned to foam.
Tomorrow, her brother will be home from France.
What tale shall we tell?
If we explain reality as it is... 
would that be telling the truth?


The inspiration for this tale against gender violence (now psychological, not physical) came from both Hamlet and the Little Mermaid: I could see Ophelia as the Little Mermaid and Hamlet as her prince -plus, also some Ophelia-Gerda and Hamlet-Kai for the same reason; Andersen failed as a thespian before he turned to fairytales, and he praises Shakespeare in some of those tales...