Delicate

A magnificent kingdom. A kingdom built out of insecurities.

It looks beautiful, but the whisper of a lie is enough to tear down its ashen walls.

On the inside, a small girl sits upon a throne of needles.

Needles, meant to sew things together, tearing her apart instead. Little by little, sewing holes into the fabric of her being.

Atop her head rests a paper crown. Fragile. Thin. A person could easily crumple it into a ball with nothing more than cuts on their hands from tiny paper knives.

Her heart is made of glass. She must be handled gently; place her heart into the wrong hands, and one touch could make it shatter into a million pieces.

The girl sits alone within these walls, the loneliness her shield against the world outside. No other people are to be found, lest they hurt her.

The girl fortifies the walls with silence. Those who attempted to approach the kingdom were turned away by the silence, the lack of laughter and words.

“There is not a single soul inside,” visitors would say.

There is a soul inside the girl. She possesses such a thing, but neglect taints it. Her fear of being broken makes her shiver at the sound of laughter and words. The pair was a dangerous thing, capable of connecting people’s souls together.

“Fools,” she would say. “What happens should the other half be ripped away?”

Her life wastes away within her kingdom of insecurities. She lacks emotions as her method of defense, but the isolation only weakens her. By neglecting to use her heart, it may as well be broken, nonexistent.

A smile has never graced the girl’s face since she locked up the doors of her kingdom. She bears a regal frown as she sits upon her throne, numb to any sort of emotion.

Some nights, she weeps alone on the cold floor of the castle. She locked herself away in a prison and threw away the keys, seeking to protect herself, only to find the weight of loneliness caving in on her weak heart, the locked doors ensuring that no warmth meets her for comfort nor laughter carries music to her ears.

A little about this piece

I wrote this piece during my sophomore year in high school. Some of the inspiration I had for this piece came from the song "Paper Crown" by Alec Benjamin (listen to the song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzmjdntlRJk). I used to isolate myself a lot from the other kids at school because I was scared of becoming attached to people that wouldn't be around once we graduated. Nowadays, I know it's better to make friends and strengthen my bonds with them while I still have the chance, since you can only experience high school once and strong bonds can survive separation.