The citadel does not bleed,
it manufactures to hemorrhage,
arteries chanting succession succession succession until the word loses meaning.

The false heirs now arrive wearing crowns grown in mirrors,
hands immaculate, knuckles unbitten
they scream inheritance and the throne laughs in jubilation.

VALDI EDAMES WAS NOT A BOOK
It was a wound in the cosmos that learned grammar

And the stars did not speak
they stuttered themselves apart
each syllable detonating a constellation
and the Oracle caught the shrapnel in my mouth and called it prophecy

By the hand of the true inheritor
NO!!!
By the absence of their hand
by the negative space where a hand should have been
etched into the sky like a veto to your declaration.

The knowledge arrives late,
dragging its own coffin
KNOWING KNOWING KNOWING
too much and never enough.

We rise from the wreckage
not reborn
not redeemed.

But reassembled incorrectly.
Cursing ORDER with each breath.

Bones facing future,
faces facing inward
A citadel made of apologies that never learned language.

And to laugh about it all,
while the stars finish decomposing to the HUNGER,
and the un-enlightened call it governance.

Penned by my hand on Tisday, the 22nd of Slyphian, in the year 15 AC.