Barbed wire rests beneath the clasps of my bra, metal on metal. Femininity and danger colliding at the barriers of my flesh. And oxidized by past tears kneaded in sweat, their hold on the softest parts of me begin to come undone like a tired army. Unraveling, undoing at the phantom hands of those whose grip never faded despite their presence that died like a shadow at night. Who now wear a mask of invisibility, and still a physical residue. An adumbrate hand pulls at the metal dressing of my outer layers, unclasping the hardware that prisons my surface without enough protection. I remember this feeling and lie back into the weightlessness of their touch, allowing my cursed vulnerability to thirst on me as if I were a glass of cold water. Swept from the embrace of my prior pillow, I let susceptibility drink from me. Granting it access to a fountain of daring youth, or death if I choose to alot to defenselessness. I concede to the first steps of being a free prisoner from my own shields as shadows undo the easiest lock to my fortification. My breaths hitch then untie the barbed wire until my heart can breathe once more. Can sound and whisper prophecies where vulnerability won’t overtake me again. I hold a promised crown against my skull as my eyes drift to the sky, studying the moon and the shadows it casts beside my body. Impossible I tell myself and yet, those fingers travel down the bareness of my spine, feeling where points of metal fall loose at my own undoing. Like a drawbridge to a castle, metal clinks and falls to the floor for a second time, meeting my lingerie at the feet of our demise. The shadow smiles at the sounds of dropped barbed gates, fleeing into the heart of my fortress like a knight in shining armor drawn by the moon. The third clank of metal sounds against the wooden floors and my crown now sits with the collapsed barriers at our feet. No longer protected or promised royal, I’m just a peasant bare of clothes and drained by my own consumer like a jest who teases hope. A princess turned peasant by an army who becomes weak at the knees of not those who hold swords, but those who hold me. Femininity and danger imprison fragility until under the shadowed hands who once promised me more metal to wear. A crown only exists when you fight for it yourself. A knight in shining armor is a king who wasn’t bore with honor.
