The lost crown

 She once wore white like a promise unspent,

lace veils fluttering with tomorrow’s breath.
Now the mirror shows a woman halfbent,
counting empty rooms where love met death.
The house she lost still stands in memory’s lane
walls that echoed laughter, then screams, then silence.

Dishes left in anger, doors slammed in vain,
a tongue like winter wind, sharp with defiance.
Friends whispered warnings she never could hear,
“Soft words build bridges; sharp ones burn them down.”
She answered with fire, with pride, with a sneer,
until even the hearth refused her crown.

Children visit on weekends, eyes full of questions,
polite little strangers learning not to ask why.
She smiles too brightly, hides the infections
of regret that bloom when the curtains draw high.
At night the bed feels wider than oceans,
no arm to anchor her storm-tossed soul.
The shame arrives dressed in quiet devotions
a ghost in the kitchen, a weight in the bowl.
She waters dead plants out of stubborn habit,
feeds stray cats that won’t stay for her hand.

Once queen of a kingdom, now beggar of habit,
learning too late what a woman must understand:
A home is not built by the strength of her will,
nor kept by the fire she refuses to tame.
It crumbles when kindness is left on the sill,
and character’s cracks let the cold enter in.

She carries the blame like a stone in her chest,
not for the leaving, but for how it began
the slow, unseen poison of words unblessed,
the woman who broke what she swore to defend.
Yet dawn still comes, cruel in its mercy,
lighting the ruins she once called her own.
Shame is a teacher, harsh and unsparing;
perhaps, in its shadow, a wiser seed’s sown.