What poetry is there in this thread
which connects from Count to shadow
and from death to rebellion? What's
mercy in the face of heartbreak and
grief shaped into rage? Loudest die
first, then the actual perpetrators
with one brother in between, having
lost at his own game. I'm no better
than the rest, not merely bystander
to my own history nor victim to the
cruel care of another, a Count! His
distance bitter, his bridges worse.
Such liberation is seldom virtuous.
I wanted to excise the hatred & rot
from my own heart, cut out the last
scraps of my former family, a feast
for Knave. No surprise another name
would take its place, fester & wait
for the right time to bloom, rancid
as it opens: our story already dead.