Six Conflicts: I

Self

It’s the call of two best friends
Sky and Stars
Who’d join hands
In a jar full of fireflies
And decorate the firmament with
Constellations.

It’s the sleep earned by kings
Fallen in battle
Whose nations are footnotes
And fodder for bard songs.

It’s the war of the two
Clamoring in his head.
The call begs him rise, come,
Step out of his stone-walled prison.
It’s a voice on the wind,
In the crashing waves on the sea.
It’s begging and pleading.

It echoes a memory,
A woman kneeling at his feet,
Sobbing,
I love you both.

Pleading tastes of ashes
On his lips,
And he wishes the sea
Would wash away the taste,
Replace salt for salt.

Come to me.

The lure of sleep is calm, lulling,
The sway of tall grass in the breeze,
The rough, solidarity of wheat
Between his fingertips
As he reaches out for a handful of field.
Sleep promises
A cocoon of warmth,
Sunlight on a spring day.

It echoes a memory,
The broken sound of men
Weeping, creaking in their armor,
The scratchy-warm half-comfort of the linen
Shroud they wrapped around him,
Round and round, winding,
Wound.

And then they lowered him
Into the ground.

Sleep forever.

Behind his eyelids,
In the hollow in his chest
Where his heart used to beat
Two voices clamor
For answers.

Come to me.
Sleep forever.

Sunlight breaks upon
Starlight.
Fireflies dissolve from between
Fingertips like
Wheat crushed in a gauntleted fist.

Voices clash,
And it’s a tug, tug, tug,
Of war,
Of strength,
Of wills,
Of ex calce liberatus

And he opens his eyes,
Rex quondam rexque futurus.

Your people need you.