Seventeen is the age
of celebration.
It is the year when
a young princess
begins meeting
potential future
princes.
(That is, the year
they can do so
without major
arguments from
their fathers.)
Traditional marriage,
of course, isn't until
the twenties. Ariel's
great, great, great
(was it three, or four?)
grandfather supposedly
didn't marry until the
age of thirty-two.
Still, she stays up
celebrating with those
she holds close – her
future kingdom, most
of whom she loves
quite dearly.
In the dark hours of
the night, far past three,
she whispers, “Penelope?”
“I'm awake,” her best friend
whispers back. She rolls onto
her side, not only awake, but alert.
“What about my boy?”
She knows it's probably
her silliest thought about
him yet, but Penelope
doesn't laugh this time.
“Forbidden love.”
Her tone is sympathetic,
rare for the rebel she tends
to be. “Unless you want
to drown him.”
She wanted reassurance,
not truth. “I could visit
him if he hung out at
the coast.”
“And introduce him as
King to your brave kingdom
as they travel to shore
with you?”
“Shut up,” she says,
and shuts her eyes tight,
and pictures her boy.
“And what about a
future heir? Who knows
how those things reproduce,
Ariel? All those limbs.”
She would not admit it,
but she once caught a
pair of sailors doing
just that. Her blush
made her happy it
was nighttime.
“It's probably the same,”
she muttered. “Essentially.”
“But you don't know.”
With a shake of her head,
she turned away from her
friend, and tried to push
the image of the sailors
from her mind.
She did not try nearly
so hard when they turned
into them – her and her boy.
This was lust, not love.
She didn't know him.
But she wanted to.
YOU ARE READING
Under the Sea
PoetryShe lives in the sea, harboring a crush on a human boy. He lives on land and dreams of a beautiful mermaid. It's a forbidden love, destined to end in tragedy. (A story in verse, based loosely off of The Little Mermaid)
