i. there’s blood on your hands, infant.
it’s your mother’s blood,
her life and the
life she gave to you.
she brought you into this world, tried
to bring you out of darkness and into light…
except it didn’t really work,
did it?
because the light hardly affected you,
little child, with your whirlpool eyes and that soul that was already
far too dark.
she could never have imagined, your mother,
that her lamb’s blood
would have raised a
wolf.
ii. there’s blood on your hands, boy.
it’s your own blood,
from where you’ve fallen and scraped your knee.
get up,
your father tells you, and his voice isn’t kind or gentle but you understand,
know that big boys don’t cry.
you’re only seven but you know already.
you stopped crying a while ago.
iii. there’s blood on your hands, young man.
it’s your brother’s blood,
you watch it pour between your fingers
like river water stained an awful crimson,
and amidst the rage that burns hot and white you can taste
retribution
on your tongue.
(it tastes bitter-sweet, like you’d imagined,
honey and vinegar.)
it’s a waste, this, a life thrown away, because he was a happy boy.
you don’t believe in happiness, not for a long time, but
he
did, and that’s
important,
somehow.
maybe you didn’t love him properly,
not like the story-books say you should,
but you’ll avenge him.
iv. there’s blood on your hands, phoenix.
it’s a stranger’s blood,
blood you’ve spilt,
blood that runs down, down,
down your arms and hands
down past your feet
down onto the too-expensive carpet you’re treading scarlet footprints into.
you said you would avenge him, them, all of them,
and here you are, and it isn’t really clear in the half-light which is sharper:
your knife or the grin on your face.
they thought fire would kill you.
they were wrong,
and when you rose from the flames you had been made anew.
fire becomes you, now, it’s a weapon, not an enemy,
and burning a mansion to the ground becomes so simple,
the easiest thing in the world.
you should feel some guilt, by rights, but your heart isn’t like other hearts, it’s cold and cruel and
all things burn, in the end,
so why waste a moment’s thought on
the things you’ve razed to the ground.
all things burn, in the end.
(except you, perhaps;
you have become the thing that burns others.)
v. there’s blood on your hands, king.
it’s your own blood again,
but you haven’t fallen over this time.
this time you’re fighting,
and there’s a battered form in the dust in front of you,
and you’ve proven a point to anyone who doubted you.
so what if they got a lucky hit, scratched your face with the shards of a bottle?
the blood you’re wiping away from your forehead is like
armour, chainmail.
your followers have always respected you,
but now they’re afraid of you,
too.
you look at the cut over your eye in the mirror afterwards,
and there’s blood
on your lips when you smile.
did that powerful man know what he was getting himself into,
when he signed a pact with the devil’s right hand?
no-
not right hand-
the devil himself.
(it’s a nickname others have given you when they whisper
about you in the dark
and it seems fitting.)
perhaps not, you think.
king cap looked to buy a fighting dog,
paid for a hellhound.
vi. there’s blood on your hands, lover.
it’s their blood,
this time,
the blood of someone who, despite your marble-steel exterior,
means a lot to you.
you’re bandaging their wounds
- they don’t need you to -
because, despite yourself,
you have to make sure that they’re
safe.
you have to have them near you, always,
you may go your separate ways often enough but there will always be
a red thread
tying your fingers together.
(a passing traveller told you that myth, once.
you don’t believe in fate but it seemed apt,
somehow.)
you find yourself looking for their face in crowded rooms,
waiting,
for the moment that they’ll sidle up to you and you’ll hear their voice,
whispering in your ear,
the slow lapping
of waves on the sea shore.
it’s not love, not at all,
(that would be childish)
but something altogether more prosaic.
need, perhaps.
vii. there will be blood on your hands, old man.
it will be the world’s blood,
when you’ve pulled its innards out
and scraped all you can get from deep within,
when you hold its bloodied heart
beating in your hands.
your parents taught you ambition
but they never could have imagined the fire of hunger they lit in your soul.
the best is not enough.
you want it all,
want the world, your world,
to cower at your feet,
want all those who wrote you off as nothing more than vermin
to know that
they were right.
you are vermin, and you wear the slur with pride.
more fool them, you’ll think, when the carcass of the world lies bloody at your feet.
they forgot that vermin have the power to destroy.
vaporwave
baratheonpilled
dailybridgerton
annaxmalina
jacobvanloon
origamiaround
