Breath of Air 

Grieves

--

Once upon a fantasy, there lived a princess, a pearl, her precious majesty. 
Fresh as the wind, bright as the sun, 
They called her Yongsun. 
A child blessed by angels, 
The Creator's artistic miracle. 
But of course the world could never let her be. How the evil seeps; deep into the souls, deep into the sea. 

The magic flowed through her veins, 
And the people feared her reign.
They turned their backs, 
Threatened their attack.
Beneath their boots twigs cracked,
As the fear wracked their minds,
Black hearts tightened their binds. 
Amnesiac minds; paranoiac hearts,
Forgotten days, all fallen apart.  
And so they lit their matches in the black night. 
The King, the Queen, 
They saw the light in the dark, 
How stark
It seemed.

Yongsun grew up in a secluded wood,
Alone with the wolves, as well as she could. 
Alone in a yellow brick house,
Alone. Alone. As wretched as Faust.  
Her parents had long forgotten
For the people were persuasive
And power became the child in place of
The miracle they'd begotten. 
She grew to love the anger inside
She learned to never hide, never apologize. 
Her magic blossomed equally strong.
She became the enchantress who believed
The world made her grieve, those thieves,
And she was never wrong.
The days passed in peace while she sought her reprieve, 
Oh, how death and destruction tugged at her sleeve! 
But she never could act, as a matter of fact,
Kindness be damned, still, evil she lacked. 
The love, she knew, was a nuisance at best
Even then, she couldn't rid the pest.
Over time, she let it all go,
Anger, sadness, the demons we sow. 
The days passed in peace
While she waited for release; 
Curse her existence on this wretched earth
What's there to live for besides death's mirth? 
 
Then came a day when her axis turned,
An answer to what her heart 
Had yet learned 
to yearn. 
A girl came through the forest, searching for a rose.
She came upon the yellow bricks,
Knocked on the door, gave it a kick. 
"Anyone home?" She cried,
Rapping the door three times with a sigh. 
"Just need a flower, don't mind me.
I see your garden is rich, you've got roses aplenty." 
The girl kicked once more, and went off to explore. 
The flora paved her path and branches guide her way
The sunkissed, dewdropped leaves seem to say 
"You're safe. You're here. Come to us and play,
Kiss away the gray."
The girl looped through tree after tree,
Far as she seemed to wander, there was nothing else to see. 
She cursed the rose under her breath,
Curse the green world that paved her death. 
So she laid her head on a mossy rock, 
And the wind mocked her with a shock of cold.
Under the cold her body shivered,
Pulled the brush against her, though her lips continued to quiver. 
Quivering, shivering, a life for a rose
A life for what? Gold, she supposed.   

"Well, well, well, has the little thief learned her lesson?
Speak now, and tell me your name. You dig around my garden like a cub, a little urchin
With a twig." 
The girl opened her eyes, and was blinded by light
By a face beautiful as Athena; like Zeus just as bright. 
"Speak now, and tell me your name
Speak, and your life may not end in vain." 
"I just need a rose," she said in a daze.
"For a little flower, you'd travel this maze? 
You'd give up your life for an afterlife in strife
For a flower that'd go
By any other name
Like it's all the same.
A cold rose is a tale like old;
A cold rose is just a thorn sold
Like a luxury. It's infamy, in all honesty,
This rose you seek is a waste of time,
For this rose you waste your rhymes."
The girl dusted off the frost on her nose,
Straightened up, like the sun arose. 
"With all due respect, I don't know where you've been. 
I don't know what you've seen, could care less about your sins.
With all due respect, you don't know where I've been. 
You don't know what it means, you don't know what I've seen. 
To you a rose is just a rose,
Perhaps you don't know. You've been here, I suppose. 
The Queen, you see, has a bounty on me. 
I'm a celebrity, you know, everyone wants a piece. 
Fifteen million for me, unless I can do the deed:
Steal the steel rose, she said, a favourite of the Queen's. 
I know what you're thinking; I can see it in your gorgeous eyes. 
I'm not flirting, I swear, just distracted, I won't lie. 
You must think I'm crazy, but you must be crazy too. 
Alone in these woods, 
Next to these wolves,
tamed by these cloves;
You're an alabaster goddess, and there's a fire in your hands,
You can't fool me when you've got a special brand of crazy going on in these lands."

"First of all, you're rude;
I like your style, and you're cute to boot. 
I'll spare your life, but come with me. I have things you might want to see. 
Maybe you'll even find what you need, depends, really, on what you can do for me. 
Now tell me your name, I won't ask again,
Or I'm not going to dance this dance;
I'm sure the wolves won't mind
They're old friends of mine."

"My name is Byulyi, 
like the stars you see. 
And you need to relax,
I'm not going to run, I can't go back."

Through the trees, and across a stream,
They travelled, like a dream, along a path the thief has never seen. 
Byulyi told of the steel rose, wild and proud on this magic isle. 
Yongsun scoffed, told of idiots sold by old wives tales across the miles. 
But Byulyi rolled her eyes, and smiled,
Sidled up next to her, shook her head for a while:
"You've been in this forest your whole life,
You think the world is bad from what you read
But I live and I breathe in the miasma of strife,
You don't know, can't know
Until life has shown 
How the pieces of your soul
Can shatter and build, melt in the sun, and freeze in the cold." 
Yongsun stopped in her steps, picked a flower, and said:
"You're quick to judge, and you're luck I'm not upset,
Since your confidence is cute, and your arrogance unmet.
You think I've lived a charmed life, think I've got it all.
It's charming, you think, to sleep alone without a soul,
 to be a child in the wild with powers you can't control 
The demon in my basement, guess it's charming when I feed it,
But self-loathing is boring after all these years and god it's overrated.
I don't know where you've been,
To me your world's a dream. 
I don't miss the double-edged courtesy,
The pedestal, the lies, and the hypocrisy,
But I miss the way I used to feel,
Alive, loved, beautiful, and real." 

Byulyi shrugged, cheeks tinged with pink:
"For what it's worth, you're beautiful, I think.
 You're alive, beautiful, and real,
But I won't tell you how to feel. 
You and I are much the same, 
I had a shot, I threw it away. Rotten by fame
I came, I saw, I lived--for who? 
For what? 
It's corrupt! 
A life for a rose is better than none;
A life for something is better than none."

Then the steel rose descended from the sky, 
The beautiful armour shined, calling, "Don’t be shy." 
"Go on," Yongsun nudged,
"Fulfil your dream, who am I to judge?"

Surely a scam, a trick, an illusionary bait,
Possibilities rattled her brain; she couldn't wait. 
But Yongsun smiled so prettily,
And the petals soft like newborn leaves,
Such an obvious choice, it wasn't even a choice, 
But the noise, the --

"You have a dream, and that's more than me. 
Living for a rose is more than I can see
In me, I live for ideas that never come,
Melodies I can never hum,
The simple beats escape me, so natural to everybody
Else, so maybe you're not wrong. 
A life for a rose is your song. 
I wish you luck, and perhaps you'll find 
Something to ease your mind when nightmares are far behind." 

Byulyi took the rose and through the woods she fled,
Not thinking about the way Yongsun stood, the way she looked at the end. 
She journeyed for days to the palace gates,
Finally, the place. 
But the enchantress' eyes weighed on her heart,
Her story, her face, every work of art, none would part. 
She stood at the gate, hooded in black:
What of her life after the rose, what's after that?
Prowl the streets, freely in chains, free to dream, lost in pain as the days loop by, one day at a time. 
One day at a time and she called it living,
Loveless, lost, but she called it living. 

Yongsun. 
She knew this farce, this game,
She knew they were the same.
Yongsun. 

Byulyi raced back into the woods, ran and ran, fast as she could, race as she should
Fast as she could to her newfound dream
to learn to love, to split the seams, 
to mend them back, kiss them better, and raise the hollow beam, 
write poetry by the ream. 
She held the rose in her shaking hands,
Hoping the enchantress would give her a chance. 

She collapsed by the brook, 
and took a good hard look
At the reflection in the water
A dusty thief looks back; why did she bother? 
Nothing was where it was when she left,
The lack of familiarity was a peculiarity that left her bereft. 
"What an existence," she sighed as she slept,
By the water, in the night, surely where death crept. 

"You must really enjoy trying to die in my garden,
But I guess I enjoy the power in your pardon."
Byulyi looked up, rubbed the frost from her lashes,
And lit up like a billion matches:
"I came back to you," she said with a smile.
"To me? Why me? You ran the mile with your wile,
Got your rose, sure as the wind blows, 
Lived your dream, I suppose." 

Byulyi smiled, tentative and shy:
"My dream was a lie, but I don't mind, 
With you I…I'd like to try.   
I've been damned just the same, exiled still from the Queen's reign. 
I thought the rose could change the shade of her heart,
But you can't change the people when you're condemned from the start. 
The start. I want a new start. 
You and me could conquer the world like Bonaparte,
You and me could be blown apart, 
But we could be happy, I don't care where we are…
I want to try with you, if you want to try with me,
We've lived our lives in the dark for so long, no love, no family. 
Here is your rose, I'm not going to need it,
There's nothing out there for me alone, I'll admit." 

Yongsun grinned, pulled Byul to her feet, 
Pulled her in, kissed her on the cheek. 
She caressed the rose with a finger, 
"I don’t care for the flower, but I wouldn't mind if you linger."

Once upon a fantasy, two girls found their family, 
Found their breath of air, their purpose and humanity. 
In the deep of the woods, the rush of the seas,
Through cities they roamed, but found home among the trees,
In the enchanted forest, where they first did meet. 

END

Notes: This took me an entire day, but I haven't been so excited in a while. I've been writing rhymes recently and thought, hey why not? I recently performed a little piece. Thinking I'll have to rethink my career.

I wrote all of this on my phone so the format is a bit off and there might be some mistake. My computer is out of commission for a couple of days, so I'll have to edit it later. Please bear with me! 

For now, Wordsmith Fire, signing out!