Work Text:
i.
The opening is always what you feared.
For you will never get to be revered.
And all you are is someone else's tool,
So far, it seems Laertes plays the fool.
Your brother’s reed is wrecked along the path,
And still it’s you where others heaped their wrath.
I hold you in the highest of regards-
Ophelia stood before she reached graveyards.
The spotlight does not shine on little girls,
But your acts in act one are lost with pearls.
ii.
Think hard, should father know what Hamlet did?
The bruises on your wrists you still keep hid.
Ophelia’s not a fragile kind of lass.
She bends and molds but is not shattered glass.
As if he had been loosed from very hell,
Into your chambers with the morning bell.
And now your father thinks he’s cracked the code,
That love comes in such heavy, heavy loads.
The bruises on you wrists turn purple-black
Because you simply will not turn your back.
iii.
He strikes you once, you wonder, is this it?
He’s mad, you know, he’s going to play the bit.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting your cheek.
That doesn’t mean you both don’t start to weep.
The bruise anoints your face with violet hue,
The violent violet stains like ocean, blue.
You cannot save a man that doesn’t care,
You cannot hide the bruise behind your hair.
Behind an arras that you’ll never be,
A noble heart is here cracked o’er thee.
iv.
So what, if he is gone, you make the leap.
The water into every vessel seeps.
You fight it once, you know this is your truth
A bruised-up princess, actions so uncouth.
You screamed and sung and shattered on the floor
You wept and wept for what they have in store.
Cassandra dear, Ophelia dear, the same.
The eyes are red and watered-down in shame.
For blue and black and purple, red and green,
A flow’r you are, your body sets the scene.
The water breaks you down without a thought,
The pearls in your pockets are your lot.
So let them find the bruising, bulging veins
And know that all the prince caused was your pain.
v.
Is this the dove you searched for in the weeds?
Is this the solace, comfort that you need?
They say that crossroads burial’s an end.
But here’s your choice: to break, or now, to bend.
Ophelia’s dead, with water in her lungs.
With last act, fifth act, story left unsung.