Heavy Is the Crown

There's a boy born a prince in a country with no king. They welded on the gold before he knew the weight of anything. He never chose the bloodline, never signed for the estate, it was set upon his shoulders at an hour too young to debate. He learns to wear it level so the dinners never see it tilt, he learns to call it fortune so he never calls it guilt. There's no figure on the paper but he carries it like lead, a number he can feel each grey morning getting out of bed. He could play it as a blessing, wear it easy, wear it proud, but the weight don't read the caption, it just settles on the brow. And the voice that's in the metal is so even and so plain: great privilege, great responsibility, now justify the name. Make the whole improbable inheritance amount to something, or it's waste. And the gift he never opened lays its weight across his face. Heavy is the crown, heavy is the crown, the more they pile it on you the further you go down. Can't sell it, can't spend it, can't ever set it down. Heavy is the crown, heavy is the crown. They say he's lucky, say he's blessed, say he never wants for ought, say he should be happy, say it slow, like happiness was bought. They say it from the outside, where the gold looks like a sun, they don't see it from the inside, where it weighs a metric tonne. Every heir in every bloodline wears the same upon the frame, and not a one of them can tell you where the metal even came. And the gratitude turns rancid 'cause there's nothing to return, so the thanks become a sentence, and the sentence is to earn. So he justifies his living like they taught him, with a use, keeps a reason on the books for every breath he can't excuse. But the more he pays it down the more the balance seems to climb, and a crown don't come with reasons for the wearing of the time. It won't lift. It won't crack. He stopped asking who it's from. So he just wears it. That is that. Heavy is the crown of privilege, heavy is the crown, the more they pile it on you the further you go down. Can't sell it, can't spend it, can't ever set it down. Heavy is the crown, heavy is the crown. And they'll tell him to be grateful for the metal and the name. Be grateful. Be grateful. The good day costed out again. The good day, weighed the same.