They crowned me not with roses, but with iron thorns of state. A girl wrapped in silks and whispers, told that love could wait. The halls were filled with music, yet silence sat in me, for laughter was not mine to shape, nor heart to wander free. They dressed me as a vision, a jewel for courts to see. But under velvet, satin, lace, there lived a boundless plea. A vow was made without my voice, a ring without my choice. They said, “A queen is born to serve— her womb shall be her voice.” The cradle was my battlefield, the nursery was my throne. I bore the weight of dynasties, yet always stood alone. Mary wept in candlelight, her crown a gilded chain. Charlotte smiled with perfect grace, though silence hid her pain. And Sisi rode through open fields, to chase the wind, the sky— for freedom was a fleeting bird, too swift to ever tie. We were daughters given, bartered, sold, for treaties, peace, or war. Our hearts were pages never read, our bodies kingdoms’ law. But hear us now, across the years, our voices will not fade. The queens who carried nations’ heirs were more than roles they played. Beneath the jewels, beneath the crown, was longing, fierce and true. We dreamed of love that chose us back, of lives we never knew. So write us not as vessels, nor as shadows in the past— but women bound in golden chains, whose spirits could not last. For though they silenced every wish, and caged us in our time, we live again when poems rise— our story turned to rhyme.