Castle Walls

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.