i.
I am cold stones and
Cold hearts;
I have seen them come and go,
Come and leave,
Come and die,
Come and be
Consumed.
I am every eye and ear,
Every breath captured
Between the solitary
Arms I encase them in.
I am always
The last to let go.
ii.
Gilded brow;
Golden hair;
Clear eyes.
I can see him already,
Back bowed,
Broken under the
Thumb time has yet
To break me with.
For now he is here,
Posture straight,
Eyes narrowed and
Staring onward.
His tongue is
Sharp, but his sword is
Sharper.
His mind is
Sharpest.
iii.
How do you
Steal a heartbeat?
Let me tell you.
You steal a heartbeat
With pain,
With spears and words and
Power.
He is a thief.
I am cold stones and
Cold hearts;
But even what warmth
I harbor is greater
Than which flows through his veins.
iv.
For someone who has
Seen more dawn
And dusk than
Men at his feet,
I know he has
Lived too long.
Why has he yet to bow?
He snaps spines under
The weight of his
Demands,
Hides fear behind a
Blood-stained throne room.
There is nothing more dangerous
Than a man scared.
He knows his time should be up.
He grips his crown with
Iron knuckles, chains
His own ankles to the throne.
He does not wish to let go.
I want him to
Bow.
I want him to
Break.
v.
I am just eyes and ears and nothing more, yet I cheered when they washed his corpse out with the very words he hid, the words he banned, the ones he ran from.
The people were done. They were tired of hiding, of letting their lives bleed from their veins, of letting their fields dry and animals die.
The hunger in their eyes—I could taste it, with nothing more than my vision. The guards didn’t hold them back at the gates, for they were hungry too.
This is not the story of a good king, or even a great one. This is the story of a dead king.
This is a story of a tyrant.
