desperation,
a ticket to the ball is purchased with deprivation,
lowering of one’s saturation.

so why didn’t her early years see an invitation,
back when her self-worth clung to imagination?
the tickets were found all over the nation,
answers coloured by each situation,
but the wind only carries the cries of generalisation.
she asks the constellations,
whether they have counted any correlations.
looking for illumination,
she is greeted only by the lights of damnation.

stumbling from her tower, she begins searching for the key,
but is quickly stopped by the regime,
as they make their way home through the debris,
holding their shoes and their expertise,
they say they hate to be the ones to crush her dreams,
but the gates will ricochet her pleas,
turn to storm clouds weighed down by beliefs.
they guarantee it is better to be free.
so why do their retreating backs weep,
that their hopes would come apart at the seams? 

if she were wise, she’d be willing to freeze at the palace doors,
buried under swords,
she’d use to fight what must be wrong beneath her scores.
hoping to be washed up on shores,
of lands where they might hear her roars.

if she shouted there, they would see a banshee fighting the final rigor;
the severity of what was wrong with her.
what was wrong with her?
the holder of her arrows would turn into a trembling quiver.
they’d hope she was not bitter,
just an experience richer.
they would all stop to consider,
what was wrong with her.
there must be something wrong with her.
becoming her own heart’s ripper,
her fate would only be spoken of in whispers.

with no signs of provocation,
her unprompted violation,
would bear the name of desperation.