Princess

Locked high above in the highest room of the tallest tower, the princess sits on the windowsill. Alone. She looks to the world outside, to the trees, just at eye level, to the other turrets far below her, to the people that move in dream-like slowness below. She breathes the outside air through the screen that presses its checker-box pattern into her exposed thigh. The breeze is pleasant, she thinks. Even in this room that is her prison, the breeze can come in. She looks out, taking in the world.

When she tires of those below her, the princess turns to look at her tiny cell. She sees the bed with her sheets and her books, and her desk, and her walls, white and blank but for the few hangings she has put up. Her eyes flick to the door. Unlocked. As it has been her entire life. She is imprisoned in a room to which she holds the key. The door remains unlocked. Yet the princess never leaves.

The one time she did, one time she let herself out of her above the world prison, she was afraid. The words locked inside her throat and she couldn't breathe let alone talk to anyone she passed. Everyone seemed too close, they moved so fast.

They left her behind. By herself, on the ground. She knows, intellectually , that no one cares what she is doing, yet there is the ever lingering feeling of being watched. While she is on the ground, removed from the safety of her prison, anyone could be watching her, mocking her, or just ignoring her.

It is with this in mind that she wraps her arms around herself and flees back to her tower, shutting the door behind her.

But not locking it. She never locks the door. Afraid of it though she is, the princess still wants the others to talk to her, to like her. To want to hear what she has to say and how she has to say it. She wants the people to come into her room more than anything except how much she wants them to stay away. They terrify her, yet the people on the ground also fill her with a longing that hurts so bad it leaves her gasping for breath.

The princess, trapped behind her unlocked door, is trapped within her walls. But more than that, she is trapped within herself.