His Hunger Made A Crown Jewel
A tongue well-school’d in traffic of men’s grief.
Where sorrow knelt, he stoop’d and whisper’d low,
And harvest drew from tears not his to shed.
She stood in black, a reliquary of death,
Her loss still warm with breath he had expell’d;
O painted mercy, sweeter far than truth.
Spoke hate as though it yet might guard her soul;
Her eyes ran salt, her mouth was sharp with pain,
And heaven, conscience, memory stood ’gainst him.
He laugh’d them thin.
He had but guile, a knee well-tim’d, a look
That wore the face of counterfeit remorse.
What sport it was, to win where loathing reign’d,
To pluck submission from extremest hate.
The world were nothing set against this proof:
That grief grows tired,
He took her then—not as men take in love,
But as one claims a prize half-dead already.
She named him beast, deform’d in limb and will;
He taught her then to pity what she fear’d,
Laid all his shape and sins on spiteful stars,
And knelt—not broken, but most keenly fix’d.
“…Out of my sight.
Thou venomous corruption—
thou foul’st mine eyes with looking upon thee…”
It was her gaze, he swore, that poison’d him.
Her eyes struck deeper than a mortal blade
And kill’d him living, drawing tears from stone.
Her scorn grew slack and thin,
Not harden’d steel, but cord too long in strain.
Yet still her sight fell back to rest on him—
On him, misshapen, murderous, unclean.
O sin made ripe, when virtue stoops to want,
And sorrow, starv’d, will feed on anything.
He bare his breast; he traffick’d life and death,
Not risking aught, but tasting her delay.
The blade grew dull with grief within her hand;
Her mercy stank of weariness and fear.
She dropp’d the steel.
He felt no triumph then—
Only a hunger newly wak’d in him.
Her silence was a door thrown wide and bare;
He nam’d it consent, crown’d himself with it,
And felt desire grow blacker in his blood.
Thus gain’d he her—not heart, nor willing flesh,
But use and rule, possession cleanly won.
She walks beside him now, already spent,
A body married to his mounting will.
No tears move him.
No memory bites deep.
Her grief grows thin; her name is lesser coin.
His lust for power swells and burns apace,
And where he once did kneel, he now but takes.
For crowns are bought with bodies, not with love,
And women, words, and pity rot alike.
He was not made to soften or repent—
He stands unchain’d,
and hungers for his crown.
“...I’ll have her, but I will not keep her long…”
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