daughter of the water drowns now
in a sea of her own making.
bitter, never, ever sweet.
she admonishes herself, steel-jawed, fists tight at her side.
“foolish songbird,
duped by the rhapsody of a sugared mouth.”

with lungs weeping, begging for air, she knows:
those dulcet four months had been copper.
true gold did not rust with time,
did not melt before a meager flame,
felt not the chill of winter.
she had loved her prince
with the fire of reckless, unlearned youth--
the first love she had always dreamed of.
even so,
the knives beneath her feet,
his lukewarm uncertainty,
were another mountain
she could not carry,
would not cross.