The Bronze Boy and The Princess of Night

 They forged him young in the hush of storms,
A bell of bronze with a royal form
Hung from the rafters of a roofless place,
He rang at the wind but not with grace

 He swallowed the bell to silence the sound,
To keep the peace when none was around
So every tremble in the palace below
Struck a toll in his chest, too slow

 He learned to bow like a dusk struck fern,
To curl at the lash that did not burn
He wore his blame like cathedral glass,
So holy they dared not let him pass

 His anger was stitched into borrowed shoes,
Too big to run, too tight to lose
He’d walk on eggs not to crack the dawn,
But the yolk of grief still lingered on

 They made him the ark for unspoken guilt,
A prince-shaped vault where the storms were built
Each broken promise—a rusted nail—
He bore their weight like a weathered sail

 I met him one moonless night by a well of thread,
Spinning silence from things unsaid
He looked like thunder carved from bread—
Soft and furious, half-alive, half-dead

So I told him–

 Let the bell out, boy of bronze,
You were never meant to chime their wrongs
You're not a lighthouse for their loss,
Nor a bridge they burn to walk across

 Break the spell with a bite of fruit,
Let your tears water my weathered shoot
You can leave the palace with the flickering light—
The ghosts won’t follow you into the night

 Be not the echo of someone’s fall—
Be the King who dares to hear his call
And if the bell still shakes your core,
May it ring for you—and own your roar.

At first, he paused—his eyes unsure,
A boy half-mortal, half demure
But bronze remembers heat, not warmth,
He nodded slow: “Meet me at the tower north.”

I helped him unhook the clappered grief,
With hands like ice and breath like thief
And when the bell rolled from his chest,
He wept. And said, “My mind finally rests”

 He wore no crown but named his name
King of Bronze, with a royal claim
He rebuilt a hall of mirrors and flame,
And soon forgot from where he came

 One day he raised his hand. The court grew still
His heart beats reverberating to their iron will
He cried “The bell was mine alone—
You broke my voice and cracked my throne”

 He cast me down with cold decree,
“Let iron ropes taste her treachery
Let the bell remember what she tried to mold,
For she dared to bind me in an eternal hold”

The bell I’d freed was hoisted high
Into the north tower that scraped the sky
It tolled again—just once—for show,
But every echo rang below

And I—
I knew the sound was not for war,
Nor birth, nor loss, nor mythic lore
It tolled for me. I knew its rage—
The bronze I’d tamed and hoped to cage

 They tied my wrists in linen thread,
The crowd below, the sky half-dead
The mask was not  placed to hide my face,
A kindness in that final grace

 And as I rose to meet the rope,
Without any pleas, without hope
The last thing in my line of sight
The boy I loved, now crowned in spite

 His fingers twitched, as if to soothe
But he did not cry. He did not move.
And when I dropped—