Empty throne

The decor is gold filigree,

inset with diamonds, sapphires, jewels of a thousand worlds.

Bars of pure marble act as the walls.

But the cage is still just as inescapable as its steel brother,

and every bit as cold.

Finer things

Is it a diamond you seek?

Cut and shaped with princess blood,

adding to the value?

Pure, elegant, transparent.

Polished to perfection, mirroring

what you wish to see?

Should I congratulate myself for thinking

you do not care for those

neatly fractured inside, tarnished, imperfect,

but diamonds none the less?

You never wanted to see the wild flowers.

Only those cultivated over years

by expert growers and displayed by florists

to show their most enticing features.

But look how much life

those wild flowers bring.

That’s what I’d like to say, yet it’s too late.

Your eyes have turned to stone.

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Beyond the naked eye

Yours is the shaded bench placed beside the stream where tired walkers rest their feet whilst watching the ducks at play.

Yours is the mansion with the ivy climbing high to the window of the first floor bedroom, where its creeping tendrils lightly finger the latch.

Yours is the garden that is home to upright stones marked with old names, beaten down by wind and rain to become unreadable.

And yours is the oak tree that has been growing for a thousand years, whose roots intertwine with the forgotten skulls in the invisible pit.