the princess learns to sleep on the pea under her bed
everyone tells her that there will be rougher beds
so she stops complaining
she wakes up in pain, back bent and aching with every move
she learns to ignore it
she can barely sleep for the pain in her back
and the knowledge that the pea is there
and she can feel it when one else could
she learns to forget it by morning
till the pain in her back doesnt fade away
till she cant move this way or that
there will be rougher beds they say
and shes afraid it wont get better
and she knows it wont get better
and she knows there are better beds
but shes not complaining