PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Once upon a time, in a far away land, there lived a beautiful princess.

Except it wasn’t really that far away from here.

And she wasn’t really a princess, though her daddy treated her like one, and her mom made her act like one.

And she wasn’t beautiful, exactly. She didn’t have a face that could make grown men fall to their knees. She didn’t have a body that made other girls burn in jealousy. But she did have great big green eyes that lit up when she saw someone do right in the world. She had this silky, straight brown hair that sorta shimmered on perfect autumn afternoons, when the weather was just warm enough to be comfortable. And she had these beautiful, dainty hands, with perfect round cuticles and majestic ligaments striking chords beneath that soft white skin – and those hands could play the piano like nobody’s business.

Her name was Jasmina, which is a pretty cool name, and a lot of girls I know wish they had a name like Jasmina. And she usually did love her name. But people tended to spell it wrong a lot, and though they generally had good intentions, that got quite annoying after a while.

Jasmina was pretty, but she was also shy. She had a great sense of humor, but nobody really got to hear her jokes. She also had a great laugh, which nobody really got to hear, either. But don’t pity her; Jasmina wasn’t afraid of making friends or anything. She was just okay without them. Better, actually. She loved being alone; she revelled in her solitude.

But she also had a beautiful singing voice that went unappreciated. Nobody heard the way she could belt out anything from a sexy, gravelly low G to an ecstatic, wavering high F. Nobody heard the hundreds of complex songs she could bang out on the black and white keys of her old, disgusting piano, and nobody knew how much beauty she could make from nothingness.

This isn’t a sad story, though. Jasmina did everything she ever wanted to do, and nobody held her back. She had killer grades in everything except Biology, and she only failed Biology because Mrs. Gates was a total asshat. She climbed enormous rocky slopes, she played soccer until her legs gave out, she swam in warm summer lakes, and she skated on lakes when they froze. She danced in the grass, she danced in the sand, and she danced in the rain. She read a ton of books, and that’s how she learned as much as she did. She taught herself origami, calligraphy, how to make clothes, and how to make shapes out of shadows with your hands. She taught herself grammar, etiquette, and life skills. She taught herself Spanish, French, and even a little bit of Korean. She learned what people were like in the 1400s, in the 1800s, and in times before Christ. She learned what people were like in China, and in Brazil, and in Germany, and in Russia. She learned why we fought in wars and why people protested and why we don’t have a robot for President yet.

And Jasmina wasn’t alone for her whole life. She had some friends who came and went, and she was okay with that. She liked getting to spend time with them while they could, but she never cared much for keeping them around. At least, that was the general rule.

But rules were designed to have exceptions, weren’t they?

And there was one particular exception to that rule.

His name?

Michael Price.

Michael had great big, green eyes, just like Jasmina’s.

He also had a hunger for knowledge that matched hers in size, if not exceeded. (But you probably don’t have to worry about that; Jasmina was very competitive about this sort of thing.)

            Michael went to the same college as Jasmina: The University of Syracuse. And Syracuse was a good place, don’t get me wrong. But most days were below freezing, so they both liked to stay inside by their respective fires and read their respective books and get along on their individual, lonely lives.

            So you can see how it was practically a miracle that they met.

            They met as most friends do. Maybe a mutual friend introduced them. Maybe they sat near each other in some obscure class that they’ll never remember the name of. Maybe they met at a party, though that one is highly unlikely, knowing them.

            Whatever happened, they learned that they were remarkably similar human beings, and this led to a wonderful friendship between the two of them.

            Jasmina taught Michael how to climb rock walls. Michael taught Jasmina how to shoot an arrow.

            (Michael was faster than Jasmina at rock climbing within a week. Jasmina hit the bullseye on the first day.)

            They talked about everything, from which former President would win in a fight if you put two of them against each other, to the vastness of the universe and the smallness of mankind.

They talked about the stock market in the early mornings and swapped Civil War folklore at dusk.

And it didn’t take long to start talking about how much they loved each other, how much they needed each other, and how strange it was for the both of them, how foreign, that they could feel this passionate about another person.

They had an April wedding, and she wore a lacy, rose-pink gown instead of the traditional white, because she didn’t feel like being traditional. The catering went wrong somehow, and they got carnations instead of roses by mistake, and the DJ played music that nobody liked, and Michael’s mother got drunk as all hell, and Jasmina burned herself with the curling iron and looked like she had a hickey, but surprisingly, nobody remembered any of this at all. What they did remember was the glow on Michael’s face, the happiness the two of them shared throughout the day, and romantic candle-lit dancing after the sun went down. Jasmina’s mother never forgot the look on her daughter’s face as she held her new husband’s hand and gingerly stepped into the cab, smiling gently, with rosy cheeks that contrasted the mascara-stained cheeks of her mother.

And you know what, Michael treated Jasmina like a princess, too.

Sure, sometimes they fought; sometimes about silly things like who was smarter between the two of them, but sometimes about serious things like where their next house payment was going to come from, or whether they would attend Michael’s mother’s funeral.

            But in the end, all it boiled down to was love. And in the end, love was all there was.