A King's Loss

Written for my creative writing, one of the few poems I enjoyed writing and actually was proud of.

She could hear the old man whispering through the night,

Hoping for someone to come bring her back to life.

She wanted nothing more than to help the old man’s loss,

But there was nothing she could do for the king,

And the kingdom, too, left him to his mourning in dead silence.

They should’ve known, she thought, what doing nothing would sacrifice.

 

She saw more of him, more of his sacrifice,

Just so they could all live one more night.

And when he lay on his bed and cried in the silence,

She wishes she could show him she’d been brought back to life.

For without her, it seemed, there was no king,

Just a man who could only see the tragedy of loss.

 

The kingdom so fed with love and passion did not know loss.

They did not understand everything the old man would sacrifice.

The old man ruled with the true care and love of a king,

Ruled so that no one had to care at the coming of night.

There would be no mourning, no unnecessary loss of life,

Would be no sorrow in the whispering screams or the thundering silence.

 

She knew in that room where he stared at her so hopelessly in silence,

That they did not feel what he did, the fear, the loss.

They did not ponder the cost of a life,

Until they witnessed the cost of their kingdom, the withering sacrifice,

Until they noticed the crops and the homes rotting over the night.

Only when they watched their rotting fields and rusting gold did they notice the absence of their king.

She was outraged that they would forget the love of their king,

Even where she lay, she simmered in silence.

She would watch her king lose a little more hope every night,

The old man who could not muster the decayed love to save his kingdom from the same loss.

He would no longer give what they expected him to sacrifice,

Instead, he would wait out his shortening, saddening, sorrowful life.

 

They would never consider the king with all his riches and all his power, a sad life.

They envied the life of a living king.

They knew naught of our life and what it means to give sacrifice.

But unlike her, they did not simmer, they did not sit still in silence.

Thinking he had everything and would never suffer this loss.

They would scream and cry and shout at the king while he lay by her at night.

 

She was angry they would never understand what he would suffer in the night,

She would rise from her death bed to show them loss,

She would turn their tirades into silence.