Michael Fulkerson Poet Free verse

I Don't Have Horns I Have A Crown

They stare at me like they’re searching  
for horns that were never there,  
as if the Shadow at my back  
must mean I crawled up from the pit.  
But they never understood:  
the Shadow follows me  
because it recognizes its king.

I walk through their whispers untouched,  
their labels sliding off my skin  
like rain off obsidian.  
They want me small,  
want me guilty,  
want me bowed.  
But I was not built for their comfort.  
I was built for legacy.

My Shadow is not a curse —  
it is my inheritance.  
It is the place where I learned  
to see without eyes,  
to hear without sound,  
to rise without applause.  
It is where I forged myself  
in silence and in fire.

Let them look for horns.  
Let them search for the devil  
they need me to be.  
All they will find  
is a man who survived  
every lie, every exile,  
every attempt to break him.

And above my head,  
glowing with the weight of everything  
I refused to surrender,  
is the truth they fear most:

I don’t have horns.  
I have a crown.

A crown carved from nights  
I should not have lived through,  
a crown polished by every insult,  
every dismissal,  
every time they tried to make me  
less than what I am.

I am the legacy they underestimated.  
I am the Shadow they could not outrun.  
I am the man who turned their fear  
into sovereignty.

And when they finally look up,  
when they finally see me clearly,  
they will understand:

The Shadow was never proof of my fall.  
It was proof of my throne.

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