Galatea Malion

I am alone. Not a soul dares breath anywhere near our garden anymore. Melancholy blooms here, and penitence fills the very air you would breath. Dusty raindrops tiptoe down my face, fingers tracing across my marble skin - once perfect - and into the cracks and crevices created by unwavering hand of time. Solitary and still, I am the one reminder of a love long lost - sculpted by the princess herself to bring peace and closure, but cast aside at the face of her own talent. She always was too creative for her own good.

Her workshop would be filled with a plethora of paint, brushes, canvases, and any other tools for creation, enveloped by piles upon piles of unfinished projects. Chaos embraced you the moment you opened your eyes, and it was impossible to ignore the evident playfulness and creativity she must possess. 

I remember her, for days on end, chipping, sculpting, smoothing my form, labouring away until she was almost torn at the seems. But eventually, inevitably, I was born. Born of marble, motherless, but born. 

A day wouldn't pass where I didn't follow her silhouette with my porcelain eyes, watching her sing and dance around the garden, her hair a golden ocean of crashing waves and curls. Those sparkling, mesmerising, blue eyes glinting like the clearest crystal in the sunlight. She no longer dances; the light in her eyes has be shrouded by grief. 

One delicate, silky rose petal lands onto my nose, so close one could imagine reach up with steady hands and tucking it into their pocket. It could be a kiss, or a keepsake from a time long forgotten by all but me. Rose petals would swirl around us, tangling in the gold and emerald as though trying to dance with us, but only magnifying the beauty of the freckled face and soft cheekbones in front of me. Their waxy curves would caress our faces and in that moment you knew, with all your heart, you were safe; you were loved. 

Unfortunately, inevitably, rose petals die. They wither, warp, and weep, and any life and delicacy in them waves it's goodbye before returning to the ground, donating itself to allow future life to blossom and grow. Scarlet seeps out of them, seeping onto the floor and turning the land red. Red as the blush on my face and the blood in her veins; red as a martyr. The door to the garden remains locked; the weeds continue their conquest, and eventually all of the life in our sacred place will be stolen. The magnolia with its hanging seat that would swing lazily, innocently, in the summer's undulating breath: dead. The sparkling, intricate mosaic of squares and stories  scattered purposefully across the, then dew-covered, grass: destroyed. The fountain no-longer flows, stagnant water filling our garden with the noxious smell of rot, and all the other statues in the garden have long since crumbled to dust. Ground bone could not give a purer white, whisked away by the wind to gift a fragment to ever butterfly or moth or stick or stone. I hope one day I'll be able to join them in that generosity; I hope one day to no longer fear crumbling away as I have seen my friends and family of the garden before me. I hope that when the page turns and the sun sets, the princess will remember our brief time together and be consoled by that most precious piece of me I wish to gift - my heart - for I, as I am, will be be gone eventually, inevitably.