The Princess and the Weeds

"Mother! We eradicate every weed from the garden,

For though the Summer rains have greened the grass

And coaxed out blossoms

It has brought to life weeds.

They've been lying dormant,

waiting,

anticipating,

the return of their reign.

Now they grow stronger every day -

We shall - we must!- out them, 

Restore the place!"

"Ok. But I think you can leave the ones under your window, the pink flowers are quite pretty."

The world world grew heavy, pulling her to her knees. Keep the weeds? Keeps the weeds? 

Wherefore shalt she keep the weeds? She gasped in wordless outrage and then stormed outside with the herbicide. 

What was her mother thinking? They are weeds, they do not belong in palace gardens. They are parasites. If they were mushrooms, she would love them and serenade them in the shade, Sylvia Plath in hand. If they were a sapling, she'd measure it with daily eagerness. If they were roses, she would bury her nose into them and breathe in a kiss of dizzying gentleness. But weeds? They were not poetic, not absorbing and certainly not romantic.

But her mother was never wrong.

She angrily sprayed the other, plainer weeds with chemical death, skirting around the weeds under her window. Until they were the last and final soldiers. They seemed defiant, turning up their nose at their dying companions, ignoring their sure and certain coming death. 

"So, you think yourselves pretty?

Be sure, you are the lowest of low

and you deserve to die.

But my mother thinks you're lives are to be spared

On account of your pink buds.

You have yet to win my favour

Since I am your reeper, 

I am the one to please."

They weeds said nothing. Their weak, gawky long stems swayed slightly in the breeze. They seemed to realize their current position though, because they did not look her in the eye. The princess waited for them to do something impressive in order to save themselves. But all that happened was that one of the flowers began to cry. The princess was take aback since she had never known a flower to cry. Since it was a weed, it was quite an ugly cry.

"Weed... you weed...

You are now...

Behaving weedy..."

She was lost for words, for the second time that day. Her stutterings would not even come out in cursive. So she decided to let alone the weeds, since those who took away her words were those that won her respect. Although she continued to pretend they did not exist, the weeds flourished proudly, for they had been pardoned by a princess.