Not queen but a Warrior instead.

I had always wanted to be a queen when I was young.
Maybe the fantasies began when father called me his princess, or when I began to see my mother as the queen. She used to teach me the subjects each day after we had slept after the mid day meal. Strangely enough, she used to teach me less of the Sciences and more of Literature, after which my father would begin to focus on the Sciences. I have had a beautiful childhood to speak of, and as I grew up, I slowly began to noticethe other things that happened around me. I realized the queen was not allowed out of her castle, and that it was the king who fought all the battles for the nation. I realized it was the prince who chose his princess and it was not the other way round. That was when I decided to cut my hair short, less than the arm-length which my mother had. I decided I did not want to be the queen; I wanted to be the warrior instead.
– Saransh Gupta (Words of Wonder)

Sketch credits : Shiksha Jaiswal

Not a Prince but a Man with his nights and Half his Days

“The day when you’ve grown up,
a woman from a bud,
we’ll marry thee a prince”
the mother said like a stud.

“What if I don’t want one?”
The daughter asked now lost.
“Want thee the king,
now that’s an ambitious thought.”

“What if I love the Court Jester,
a smart, a wit, a funny,
and he love me back
with a hat that hides a bunny?”
“Then you’ll be mercy to a ruler,
in a home in winters chilled
and the day he be offended,
he’ll have your husband killed,
and your sons shall mourn for one,
and forget the loss on four,
by ten they’ll be angry,
and ask “mother, could you have married more”.

“And if I marry a king,
and I be the queen,
and I be one in hundred,
rarely on Tuesdays seen.
The king shall have no time,
and all I’ll have is gold,
and when the king be dead in battle,
I with it will be sold.
Consider the tales oh mother,
the queens are always the worst;
they have all gold and maids,
but for love it surely hurts.
I do not carve the gold
which equals me in my weights,
but all I’ll have is the person,
and his nights and half his days.”

– Saransh Gupta (Words of Wonder)

Queen of a Girl

“Never did the world make a queen of a girl who hides in houses and dreams without traveling.”
― Roman Payne, The Wanderess