mathilda perch, district four | finished [cb]

My father had told me once, with smooth hands around infantile fingers, that I had nothing to fear;
that though all before me was a reckless sea, and although I was a wayward ship, he was the beacon that would guide me —

Home.

I've never seen a word with such varying definitions. As a child, it was a palace. I was a princess, and my father and mother were the rightful rulers. They always assured me that knights were just outside the castle gates, protecting me from the dragons that prowled the streets. When I was a teenager, it shifted into a prison. I was an inmate, and my parents were the wardens. Officers guarded the doors, barring me inside, like I was nothing more than a frantic bird in a cage; left with no connection to my fellow sinners in the streets. Now that I am on the edge of womanhood, it has changed once more.

It is Hell.

My life no longer belongs to me. In a sense, I guess it never did. As the eldest child of Mayor Fabian Perch, who could expect me to be independent? Who could expect Daddy's princess to spit fire, unfurling her wings and making a new kingdom out of ash? No one; nothing. Not the burning embers of the life that I've left behind, or the look in my father's eyes when he saw the shadow of Leon Krigel's fingertips staining my flesh.

I am a girl built from porcelain,
who was once Daddy's little angel —
but he set me on fire with his love,
and I pray that I'll be the parent he never was.