“…and through their plucks, you will find yourself catatonic…
and frozen in the light of closure,
with the column & thrones of fate looming across your feet,
shadowing your hands,
you will feel the shade creep upon you
like some haunted and undead beast….”

There will be blood, sir,
an undesirable amount of it.
(And you will not be the one to clean it,
your majesty,
and neither will the servants,
because the heir will be dead and you will soon follow
to the twisted Melody of a slick and stained pizzicato.)
On the altar…
will you continue to pray?
Even when your purple robes turn magenta
and the collar of your dress shirt wine red,
when the scars bleed through your cuffs
in raised and bumpy skin?

And when the time comes,
he gives us dustpans and brooms,
for a hall of rust.
The metallic sting of blood is in the air
and the mist stains our tongues when we breathe.

And while we dust and sweep oceans through the tiles,
you stand, shadowed by the window’s dawn light,
fingers stained with free-flowing blood,
plucking a haunting tune on a poor child’s heart.