God Save the People’s Princess

In the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, (01/7/1961- 31/08/1997)

They called her the Princess

like that could have ever made her safe.

Like vintage castles could have kept the world out,

But since when could pretty tiaras keep a heart from

Breaking over and over?

She wasn’t Rapunzel; she didn’t live in a tower.

She lived in headlines, in flashlights,

in the ache of being watched, being wanted

but never seen.

She wasn’t Cinderella.

Didn’t, couldn’t wait for a man to find her.

She ran barefoot through the palace halls

before the clock ever struck.

Glass slippers shattered.

Blood on pristine white marble.

She wasn’t Ariel.

Didn’t give up her voice

And when they tried to take it,

press it between headlines and hushed press releases,

she learned to speak louder

With not empty words but actions.

She wasn’t Belle.

Found no beauty in that beast.

No cursed forgotten heart to redeem.

Just cold rooms,

and harsher glances,

until her own reflection

Was asking if this was what love

was supposed to feel like.

She wasn’t Snow White.

Had no helpful dwarfs;

No poisoned apple.

Just a kingdom that watched

as she withered from loneliness in plain sight

until she became a mirror

too honest to look into.

She reached out, for hands

no one else would hold–

The AIDS patients, the burn victims,

the broken, the forgotten.

She didn’t wear armour, 

but was at war

with cameras, with silence,

with smiling

when she was hurting inside.

She walked through long deserted minefields;

Not for fame or the tabloids

But for children who would never really know her name

For boys who would never walk again.

For mothers who feared to hope again.

That night, she walked like her body was unbreakable

What is bloodline next to legacy?

What is a queen next to someone who makes strangers feel seen?

May God save the People’s Princess.