The Gray King

The pit is vast as it is empty
And the emptiness is its draw
Paved on the footsteps of great minds
The columns of the kingdom stand tall
The mortar composed of buried hope and dead faith

Petrified philosophers stand guard at the gates
Adrenaline coalesces with lucidity
The void is not a cage
The void is a throne
The crown is covered in the blood of my former self

And his demise makes me feel nothing
I am asked to cry out for freedom
I am silent
I am told to report terror
I am silent
I am tasked to speak of dread
I am silent

If the world begs for a testimony
The world will be left wanting
Sinister warnings fall hard under a relentless gravity
The horrors of this place have grown benign and I am thriving in the muck
Ashes coat rusted skeletons of monuments made to dead ideas

My lungs are coated in soot and I learn to breath fire
Not to exhale any sort of weapon, but inhaling inexorable truth
Kings wilt atop weathered podiums
Commanding a society of cockroaches that will not bow
Heavy crowns wear down weak necks

The Sun no longer reflects on the gold
Majesty in all forms is dead
And will not ever be reborn
My sky is black forever
For my ceiling does not stop at the clouds

This universe is vast
Full of great useless monoliths
Suspended in dark matter
No stories to tell but the great withering of time
This universe is a graveyard

Coffins orbit coffins
Each corpse so convinced
The graveyard was made in tribute to them
This makes me feel nothing