LOVE Poem: An Ode to Fools and the Sole Survivor, by Joseph Sutton

Before I tell this story of mine
Each of you must keep in mind
The people mentioned are fictional
And similarities to the real are coincidental

Part 1: The Treasure

Now this story is a tragic one
And do trust me, there are more to come
I hold this story like a pet
For it covers the first love I’d ever met

We’d met in a land far from here
A place that I again would never near
Using stones to communicate at once we would chat
Of mystical things we would do if we came back

That day never came, but that’s far ahead
I could only dream of her in my bed
Well, him, a princess turned prince
But again, only important since

Then I wasn’t a good person
I don’t look kindly on this version
Of I, one who would yell at any tone
That wasn’t of obedience, I felt so grown

But I was a child, one who had thought
That to be mean was how power was got
And it was power I wanted, power I had
Over this little one, having thought it was planned

There was no plan, no need to manipulate
This newly-crowned prince had given himself the bait
That I was worth the time, worth the effort
Little did he know, he would only get hurt

One day another would give me an opportunity
Oh how he asked, oh how he plea’d
For my love, of my kindness, to relieve his distress
Of course, I would say yes

Neither would know that I’d betrayed
What could I tell them? What would I say?
The truth, of course, but I was a kid
One relatively smart, so all the more stupid

My action bore too much weight
I could feel the aches
Turned to paranoia
Like sailor on a cursed voyage

By my own guilt I was found out
I’d connected them both, and without a doubt
I knew they’d be compatible
But I never expected to crumble

I cannot tell of the months spent
Oh what I said, oh what I sent
To gain back the love of the original
I knew it was over, though in denial

A Treasure lost to my own idiocy
Or maybe, it was more than I could see?
A relationship so weak that I
Ruined it all, seemingly out of spite

Over time I became myself
Ditched the pursuit of ears that fell deaf
I’d completed my schooling, one day to become
A magister, someday wanting to be called someone

But late one evening,
Or early one morning,
Depending on your perspective,
A new message had been detected

The same situation, with different people
Him and I, voyages changed our hulls
I became alone, he promiscuous
His truths all ambiguous

On friendly terms, though not the best
We talked it out, and I can rest
As if I would, I’m still blind
By the deafening screams of my mind

With a new year came a new home
My family had moved to a place called Okrashone
Though he was pulled from his place in an old village
By his own volition by people unrelated

They came from the Goon Caves
It was him they came to save
From a family unforgiving
Of his identity unconforming

In Okrashone we now both reside
If I were to want, only a few hours’ ride
My childish self wants to see
Even if the encounter were brief

The feelings I have for him are perennial straits
Thinking that I have caused him immeasurable pain
That what was between us was an exceptional love
That I threw away the feelings of a special dove

Now I know that such feelings are mere desire
That the other side of the coin was much more dire
But every day the feeling of loving him lurks around
Waiting to pounce, the moment I feel the thought has drowned

Part 2: The Goblin

This story is quite tragic, too
One hard for me, one heart-felt
But don’t worry, it’s just as you knew
The other love that I had met

We shared a hobby, one of fighting
Every day we wished to spar
Between rounds I was consoling
For this one’s life had gone so far

Off the edge he wished to go
Well, she now, but I digress
Wanting to die, to go below
As I would expect from a prince turned princess

We talked night and day
About her family, about her fright
The empty words that I would say
To make her comfortable, to ease the night

And she wanted me, or so I thought
To be her lover, until the grave
The betrayal of it I had forgot
For this nobody could have forgave

No wonder I said yes
The allure of such a fantasy
Someone who would transmit to me their stress
And would appease my sexuality

How young I was, how vain
A shared hobby and a god complex
Is what allowed me to cause such pain
To the one I wished to have wanted to accept

As the fallout previously stated ensued
She was the first to leave my head
In the end I knew she was only food
For the voice that spoke in bed

Later on another message had come
I was in the coliseum, where the weights were
At first I was confused as to who, how dumb
I was when I found out it was her

Another gracious story of family long gone
She had left her castle for another life
Living with another woman, surviving on
The goodwill of another’s strife

I was apathetic, but wanted her to know
That I knew my errors, I knew my way
She seemed confused that my guilt was so
Strong though the years that I’d been astray

Of course a Goblin could never see
The way my guilt has carried out
A great blow to my reality
I knew that I could not live without

It festers at times even to this day
I pretend to be happy but who wants me to be?
I’m an idiot, I should go away
Start a new life where I die at sea

Part 3: The Jew

I’ve been told tragedy works in threes
Don’t worry, it’s not another one of love
Just a friend I met

The stories before were of people I could never touch
People that I could never see, with whom I never truly interacted
This one is different, I knew this boy in the flesh
When we were young, and even now when we are in different places

He’s just like me, but with one key difference
For he is a jester,
a jokester,
a clown,
But still in the court
He can never be free

The strangeness of our brains glued us together
We grew together, grew off of the weirdness
Nothing to keep us in check, no witness to bear

We had no struggle, we had no life
Except each other and the friends we’d make fun of
Even if I was just a third wheel
Making quips, talking out
It was fun to participate

Of those in the group it was I
The first to make something meaningful
Instead of being a goof, a goober
I decided to move onto something greater

Comedy was my true passion that I’d left behind
To teach, that was my calling
I could never hold that part of me back
So in the end, I fell

At such a time I had the falling out
But the one who was with me all this time?
I call him the Jew
Not from his religious preference
But rather a silly observation of his name
Offensive as it may be,
I don’t care
I held onto it forever

Later in our lives he told me of a dangerous jest
One in which he threatened peers
Said to have shot them dead with a rapid-fire crossbow
From Call of Knightly Charge
He’d been put in the cellar
Charged for terroristic crimes

While his father defended him with violent speech
Remarks against the Gendarme that had imprisoned him, too

Where he is now, I cannot be sure
One thing is for certain:
It cannot be good
I wish to have saved him from such a fate
But one cannot rescue the self from the soul

I am but a bard, I can only sing
I have no influence
I have no game
For this I’m to be shunned
Despite my greatest achievements

Part 4: The Sole Survivor

And of them all only stand I
I, the one who wishes to cry
When I’m the one who flies
Thinking that I’m just a guy

I’ve never had trauma, I’d always been strong
I’d beat on my chest all day long
Unable to wait for the next day’s song
Always excited for the morning gong

Through luck or smarts, I don’t know
I’m the only one climbing to the top of the rope
The one getting an education, going against the flow
Of life, not needing to wander on the tips of my toes

Going through life, no need to become
A magister to be called someone
It’s now just a hobby that takes me to the sun
Even if it pays me, I will treat it as such

A bard by profession, a survivor by chance
All I can think to do is dance
To the beat of my drum, to the romance
Of the life that I lead into my own trance

Fools these are not, they are full of dreams
Crushed by the weight of a life that leads
To a watering hole, drained by deeds
Of the people around the ones who bleed

That I never really knew, I was simply an acquaintance
But the one fact I had, was that their mothers lacked acceptance
Their fathers lacked gold, they could not have accepted
The misery that came to them with any sense of consent

My mind thinks and my heart feels
But neither knows what is real
Both wish to hurt me
I will never heel

I don’t know what God demands
All that I do for him is act
My life is out of my hands
For I am not human, but a man

I survive,
Better die.