Archived: The Halfling Prince by Zoe Coats

Lamentation garb, your falsehood
Tears, the memory of an absent childhood
Mourn me not, oh father of my sister
Leave pine to the greenwood
For no eulogy shall be penned
In your crude scrawl
And no forlorn preacher
Reciting in his Southern drawl

 They fashioned me chains of iron
As if that could hold their ire
They called me Salem’s damned
Condemning me to eternal hellfire
They held their children tight
And shouted for a parson
His hallowed hand writes
'Mene mene tekel upharsin’

 Dulcet songs of alluring verbosity
With flute strains of elegant tenebrosity
As the wind howls its lupine call
Summoning in its forte monstrosity
Mimicking the faeries’ unbroken motion,
Aspens reaching, branches outstretched
As they join in the lunar dance
Their lithe limbs fletched

Foolish fire enhaloed the shrouded dell
As all around sang my death knell
Fae kinsmen called me son of mine
To those who steel and plastic dwell:
Give not thy name
Drink not the faerie libation
Taste not the forbidden fruit
And relinquish not to damnation

They hide the vile parts
And appeal to beauty and arts
With truth on their lips
But lies in their hearts
They would punish a crocus
For its mortal grace
They would cast out a prince
Life, his only disgrace

I am a stolen child
Half tame, half wild
On the fence I sit unveiled
Never to be reconciled
I look toward eternity
That mulish, flighty roan
My back turned on mortality
The withering crone