A/N: So, I'm thinking I'm going to do one of these every day. They're quick, and it's good, because it's been months since I wrote any poetry (for fun, anyway). Anyhow, this one is from the viewpoint of the infamous Queen Channary, the queen who never stopped laughing. (Doesn't that sound ominous?)
Also, the formatting on this website sucks for poetry. If there was more freedom, I'd probably be doing more with shape and stuff, but there's not. If there are any tech-savvy gurus who have any way of addressing that problem, PLEASE DO. As Rita Dove said: Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful. Pretentious and cheesy, I know, but the FORMATTING IS SUCKING MY INSPIRATIONAL SOUL. (I'm super melodramatic today. Ignore my histrionics. I go to an arts school, so melodrama kind of comes with the package.)
The Queen that Loved and Laughed
I.
I never set out to be cruel.
###
II.
I hear the things they whisper about me,
in back hallways and servants' quarters,
hidden by curtains of lace and lies,
in the arms of their lover
just before they fall
asleep.
###
I know everything they say
about me, about Queen Channary,
better even than the back
of my own hand.
##
III.
I grew up in a world
of lies.
In Artemisia, children learn to lie
before they learn to tell
the truth.
###
IV.
When I was eight years old, my mother knelt down before me,
skirts pooled around her on the glossy, gleaming marble floors.
She took her thumb and traced the contour of my cheek,
eyes unwavering from mine, violet irises flinty and cruel.
###
V.
Listen to me.
Channary, are you
listening?
###
Yes, Mother.
###
There are those
who will try
to use you
in this world,
my darling.
You were born
into power,
by blood
and ability.
There are those
who will try
to take that away
from you.
###
Taps
my temple.
Strokes
my brow
with claw-like
nails sharp
as daggers.
###
I blink.
Force myself
to remain
calm.
Stone.
Impervious.
Rule
number-one
of survival:
Show
no weakness.
###
Swallow.
Try to
breathe.
###
Listen to me,
Channary Blackburn,
and listen close:
stop
at
nothing.
###
VI.
My mother reached one elegant hand down her bodice
and pulled out a gleaming knife, silver and sharp.
Grabbed my wrist, and I did not scream, because to scream
would be to show weakness, to show defeat.
Carved a Q for queen.
Made sure I would never forget.
###
VII.
That was the day I learned how
to be ruthless, how to be cruel,
how to be feared, how to become
a bedtime story of monsters and demons,
of who will come to visit
when little girls and boys
refuse to take their medicine
or go to sleep at night.
###
I may glamour that Q, make it disappear
from my burnt-sugar skin,
but when I go to bed at night,
when I slip under the covers,
I know it is there.
I trace it with my thumb,
feel the ridges of the scar.
Permanent.
###
VIII.
they say I am cruel,
they say I am insane,
they say I am the queen
that never cared a whit
for anything but parties
and dresses, boys
and long, hazy afternoons
spent entangled in cottony
sheets
###
they say I never stop
laughing
###
they say I have never loved
anything
or
anyone.
###
IX.
But they are wrong.
I have loved.
I have lost my mind.
I have lost my kindness.
I have lost my empathy.
I have lost my desire
for anything other
than materialistic items
that I can feel slipping
through my fingers
like grains of sand
through the belly
of an hourglass.
I have lost all interest for anything
that cannot make me forget,
just for a few, blessed seconds,
how very cursed I am.
###
But I have loved.
Not many times.
Just twice.
###
I have never loved
my mother,
my father,
my sister.
###
X.
But I did love the boy
with the brown-sugar eyes,
the one that flashed me a smile,
coaxed me into his bed,
not the other way around, for once,
and the girl with tiny hands,
so small and so helpless,
so full of love
for me.
###
XI.
And as I lay here in bed, my hacking coughs
Clawing up my throat, my pillows spattered
With crimson blood, death pressing down on me,
Suffocating me, I clasp my hands together
Like a locket of tarnished silver
And pray.
###
XII.
Not for me.
For my daughter.
###
XIII.
And on those rare occasions
when I do pray for myself,
I pray for death, not for life,
because this world is not for me,
not anymore, if it ever was.
###
I had love, held it in my hands,
fragile and frail as a baby blackbird,
and lost it forever.
###
And because I was scared, because
I was terrified out of my wits,
###
XIV.
I lost
It.
###
I lost
Him.
###
XV.
I loved once.
###
XVI.
Whatever else you may say about the queen that never stopped laughing, you cannot say that she never had a great love.