I failed.
I was born a princess, pure and simple.
When I say pure, what I mean is unlearned and unimpressioned.
I was meant to grow into a paragon of virtue, a yardstick by which others could be measured.
I was made to be worthy of praise and attention, to submit to my prince, submit to fate, and be rewarded for my devotion with stability and comfort. Static and stagnance.
I fell in love with princesses. I envied the might of kings.
I riled knights, toppled stronghold walls. I became a dragon.
That is not to say I never loved princes. I loved a few.
But I would do myself a grievous disservice if I were to smother my love for my fellow woman, for power, for the willo' the wisps of ambitions that keep us alive.
I have sworn to try to love myself, and treat her with the respect and dignity that I would grant to any old friend.
So I failed to grow into an admirable yardstick. You could say I failed because I grew.
I grew far beyond what I was meant to be. And for that I will never apologise.
Static compliance would be the death of me.
I will cry, I will fight, I will dance, I will scream, I will never surrender to any name.
So yes, I failed. So to speak.
Failing my old destiny was the first great achievement of my life.
I hope to make more such failures.
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125,006 Literary Works • 672,809 Reviews
Hey there Siren
let's dive right in.
Right off the bat, this reminds me of some lyrics from a Lorde song,
"I'm a princess cut from marble,
smoother than the storm."
which gives me a lot of the same vibes that the beginning of the piece does, where she's supposed to be a cookie-cutter figure, but ends up being so much more than that.
The imagery here is really good, what with the will o' the wisps and how she became not a princess but a dragon. However, I'm a bit confused on what this piece is supposed to be, as its message is all over the place. It's like it's trying to be poetry in prose form, and thus its identity is lost, and the message it's trying to deliver falls flat because of this.
To further on what I'm saying, your messages goes from this princess not liking princes to liking princes then back to liking women, but for different reasons, then to liking herself, then it goes back to the yardstick metaphor and stays on that for awhile, then back to the failed part. It has a lot of metaphors here and imagery, but their order is random and ends up taking the reader back and forth until they're confused as to what this piece is trying to say in the first place.
Not to say this is strong, though. Its message, when done well, is admirable and should be spoken from the roof tops. Unfortunately, there's muddled messes that's not letting that message shine through, strong and proud. I'd suggest that you try to focus on placing the metaphors in order, something like: "being innocent, being a yardstick, liking princes, not being innocent (compliant), growing past the yardstick, liking everyone for who they are, then ending in the I failed (but did I?)" Something along those lines, so it's much clearer.
Anyway, I hope I helped and keep writing! <3
Hello! herbgirl here for a review!
You have a good idea here, and a nice message. i felt the message here was quite inspiring, but i also felt that there was a lot that you could do to transmit it more clearly, or at least in a more compelling a poetic manner.
My first recommendation is to include more poetic line breaks. Line breaks are an important part of poetry, they indicate pauses which can create suspense and help transmit your theme. Here you seems to have some rather awkward spacing between lines, and some lines are even grouped together in what appear to blatant sentences, where the line breaks had no significance. This might have been the effect you were going for, but i felt it rather unpleasant. i recommend reading through the piece again and inserting line breaks and stanzas to indicate pauses and the changing of ideas.
Another thing that i would love to see more of here is figurative language. You seem to be using this poem to tell the story of character which, as is, is fairly linear and rather simple in nature. With a few more details, i might consider it a short story. If you add some figurative language, you can give whole new meanings to this piece. Use metaphors to describe the love that the princess feels, compare it to something simple that all can relate to in a beautiful way. There's a lot you can do with figurative language, and i encourage you to include more of it here.
Anyways, sorry if that seemed harsh. i hope you take the time to fix the things i suggested, and if not, please work to incorporate them in your future works. You have a nice base here, but i encourage you to keep working!
herbgirl
Hi, Angel here to review, sorry if it isn't the best one. I like how you wrote this, I especially love the last part. Failing is indeed an achievement that people should make at least once or twice in your life. Very beautiful writing and again, sorry that this isn't the best review that could be done.