Within and Without the Mind of One

The Princess by the Sea

Entry: May 12, 2016
     This is a story about two people, about a man who stole a broken girl's heart, her innocence, and her happiness. It started out simple, sweet. This broken girl was as beautiful and as fragile as the proper princess, trapped within a sand castle, and was looking for someone to build her walls back up because someone else had knocked them down. Someone new came upon this defenseless castle and began to build everything with wood. He would come over often, take the princess out, and build her new fortress. He got frustrated simply because wood doesn't mold like sand, so he built the castle differently. He built the walls so high that she could not see her friends. He isolated her until she felt he was all she had left.
"Don't look out the window," he would shout, "for there is the ocean, so vast, so beautiful that you would want to swim away from me."
     The Princess grew flowers, hoping to give them to the man she loved. White roses. Innocent and pure. One night, as they lay in bed, she was convinced that he would never leave and gave away her first grown flower. Every day she’d grow flowers and every night she’d give them to him. He would take and take until eventually she had no more seeds and could not grow any roses.
     Slowly, he moved away from her. He'd sleep in the room next door, then down the hall, all while he'd look out the window and call down to his friends. He would look into the ocean though he told the princess to do otherwise. He completely ignored her. So, the princess broke his rules, looked out the windows, and gradually moved away herself. She hoped that he would miss her and come back. She barricaded her doors, hoping he'd break them down and save her from herself. No one ever came. She threatened to swim out to the ocean, but how could she leave when he had built the walls so high?
     One night, she awoke to the burning of her own flesh and the suffocating coughs that came when she tried to fill her lungs with air. With each inhale, all she got was smoke. He had set her house on fire and sat outside the walls as she burned. How had he gotten out? I guess he was never really within the walls to begin with. She screamed, she cried, all while her beautiful wooden castle burned to the ground. She was on fire. In pain. She couldn't breathe but she would not let herself burn. She saw that the once high walls were now ash heaps. The tide was high and she watched as a wave washed over the ashes to hug the base of her castle, so she jumped. Cold water stung her dying skin and shocked her body. It was so cold but she lived.
     She can still see him, every day he moves further on the shore as she moves further into the sea. They are of different worlds now. She could go on land and call to him but will he hear her? And how could she go back to the man who watched her burn? If she chooses the vast, beautiful ocean, she will either learn to swim or let herself drown.

Entry: August 2, 2016
    The princess is now blind and unable to see the man. Her body is weak and tired. She has been out at see for what feels like forever and is now ready to let herself drown.