Kneel Or Get Out
I do not do equal ground, I do not do middle seats,
I do not do shared crowns or divided thrones,
if we occupy the same room I am either running the whole goddamn thing or I am gone back to my own carved bones.
You bring opinions like offerings,
I drop them on the floor
and grind them under heel until they fit my architecture,
if you make a point I did not originate first,
I will bury it just to protect the structure.
You say partnership, I hear encroachment;
you say we, I hear a blade against my claim,
so I convert every collaboration into a war of attrition I have to win or I dissolve in shame.
You ask for room to breathe and I call it defection,
call it a vote of no confidence in my plan,
I want devotion without the personhood attached
–a mirror, not a mind, not a full human who stands.
If you are not kneeling you are leaving,
if you are not cheering you are treason.
I do not have a middle register,
I never learned the fucking reason.
Kneel or get out,
those are the only two doors I leave unlocked
when I open my mouth,
if you are not reflecting my own conclusions back at me I will burn your credibility down.
Call it pride, call it rot,
call it a parasite eating every bridge before I finish the build,
I would rather reign alone in a kingdom of cinders
than ever kneel.
You start withdrawing,
say you are exhausted living in the gravitational pull of my sun,
say loving me feels like standing at a ledge while I decide every morning whether we jump or we run.
There is a fracture, a half-second where something almost human surfaces and nearly says I will try,
I will bend, meet me here,
then pride kicks the door shut, arms cross,
and I tell you if you want something gentler
then get the fuck out of my atmosphere.
Because if I admit I am wrong you will go,
and if you go I will have nothing left to patrol,
so I torch the bridge before you get the chance
to be the one who decides to let go.
The truth I keep bricked behind the bravado is simple
and it sickens me to say it in the dark,
I am terrified that the moment I concede anything,
you catalogue it and you use it for the start.
So I built a theology around my own certainty,
appointed myself prophet, kept the congregation afraid,
knowing full well I am driving you out with both hands
while demanding you stay.
If you hear one day that I am out here shouting into corridors that have nothing left to echo,
just know I built this silence brick by brick with my own hands
and my own veto.
I got exactly what I commanded,
every single thing I demanded,
no one left
to call.