Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, there was me. Nothing else to see here, just a regular princess, carry on. I wake up, I burn my toast and drink my morning coffee. I waltz around all day — It’s hard work being a princess, you know? Nothing else to see. Just me and a pea.
Oh, there is a pea in my bed. I feel it when I sleep. Don’t worry, it’s just a dull thorn in my side. My canopy is draped with white lace, my sheets Egyptian cotton. I attend the cotillions, and stroll around town. The jacarandas are beautiful this time of year. I used to be a gorgeous princess, always prim, always proper. Now, someone asks me how I am, and I feel the pea closing my throat, choking me. They worry for the queen I will become.
There is a pea in my bed. I know it. I can tell you where it is. It presses against my C-7 vertebra. I toss and turn so much that there’s a bruise I wear as a necklace. It’s my favourite accessory. It glimmers and glows in the bedding. Adorns my clavicle. Here, let me show you: see the pea, feel the circular weight crushing my chest. Put it in the daylight, see how it vanishes. A perfect princess once again.
Every night I feel higher and higher away from the pea. I don’t remember what the ground looks like. I show my aches to my knight, and he tells me I have the wrong head, not the wrong pillow. My maid tells me it’s time to cut the ties, cut the loss, cut the prescriptions. But who am I without my pea to define me?
Every night, the pea. Every morning,
squash.
