The King's Memory

They don’t remember me the way I remember them.

I leech the details from the memories, suck them dry.

A face, a name, the way my arms can be bent like a doll.

The laughter at a joke, the wrinkles beside their eyes.

Nothing substantial kept.

Everything of substance swallowed.

.

They don't remember me the way I remember them.

Favorite colors: golden egg yolks and purple sunsets.

My eye color is forgotten like the first snow in October...

But I know it matches the color of your favorite sweater.

The value of my words shrivel with time.

But there are whole worlds conceived from yours.

.

There is an anomaly in the universe,

Something of a mystical field of warping vision and memory

That clings to me like a cursed veil.

It hovers in front of my face, holographic sheen twisting

Until there is nothing left to remember of me.

Until I am a mutilated, passed-around story.

.

I cry and scream and bang useless fists against the veil.

It slips out as toothy smiles

And acquiescing words

That paint me as some sort of pacifistic peddler of dreams

When I am a cruel king

With lives wound aroung my fingers like jewels.

.

Shall I tug on the strands?

Toss the rings into a dark case and forget them

As they have misplaced the memories of me?

No because the secrets that makes their feet flee or freeze or fight

Belong to me and my memory.

I am the king of their miseries, the queen of their terror.

And still, they cannot be bothered to remember me.