The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Never Too Late
by Angela Yuriko Smith

I waited where the light fractured into stained glass promises, my hands folded in prayers I did not believe in. The crown was to be mine and I wore the weight of it as anticipation, the trembling ache of desiring to be chosen. They said the king would come, would validate me, would lift me from the altar of almost into the certainty of forever. I waited with appropriate and pious patience. I waited until the candles guttered low and my light faded. I waited until my breath thinned and my body forgot to function. I mistook stillness for devotion and silence for fate. I thought love would arrive certain, that it would name me worthy, that I would be rewarded for my until death devotion. In the end, I was left to marry the echo of a promise that had never intended to keep me…

… but this is not the end. There is a mad, ecstatic freedom that comes from losing everything. No one comes to claim me, so I rise unclaimed. The crown does not require his hand as I have a few of my own. The shape of my skull validates my right to be crowned. Let the gossipers call me Corpse. What is decay but a shedding of what is no longer needed? I have learned the language of becoming without permission. I stand now not as the bride who waited, but as the queen who remained and claimed. I tear the veil and it becomes mine. I shatter the stained glass ceiling, and the stunned silence that follows is also mine to break. Even in ruin, I am ripening to fruition. Even in death, I am arriving to claim my crown.

It’s never too late
to become who we desire
Ripening takes time.

Fiction © Copyright Angela Yuriko Smith
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

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Angela Yuriko Smith is a third-generation Ryukyuan-American, award-winning poet, author, and publisher with 20+ years in newspapers. Publisher of Space and Time magazine (est. 1966), two-time Bram Stoker Awards® Winner, and HWA Mentor of the Year, she shares Authortunities, a free weekly calendar of author opportunities at authortunities.substack.com.