XVI. The Anatomy of Want.

I. WANTING

A man.

A man of power.

A man in power.

A man in wanting.

A power-wanting man.

A wanting man in power.

To want is to have.

To have is to lose.

To lose is to want.

To want is to need.

Needing power.

Power needing.

Addicted to needing.

Addicted to want.

He wants.

He has.

He wants what he has.

He has what he wants—

and still,

still he wants.

Not the thing,

but the feeling.

Not the crown,

but the weight.

Not the throne,

but the hush when he enters.

The hush is power.

The hush is a fix.

The fix is the want.

The want is the hush.

II. CRAVING

He wanted the crown.

Then the throne.

Then the ground beneath the throne.

Then the sky.

Then the silence of yes.

Then the sound of no, made quiet.

Then everything.

Then more.

Then—

more than everything.

A man who wants what power wants.

And power wants a man who wants.

Wanting the wanting

of wanting.

Power in the wanting.

Wanting in the power.

He wants the mirror.

Finds only hunger staring back.

What he has is not the thing.

What he wants is not what he has.

What he has becomes shadow.

What he wants becomes sun.

He stands in the light—

and finds it hollow.

Yes.

Yes and more.

Yes and more than yes.

Yes,

even when it burns.

Yes louder than no.

Yes instead of truth.

Yes and yes again.

Again yes.

Yes again.

And no?

No.

No no.

No is undone.

No is unspoken.

No is unheard.

No is not.

Yes is the drug.

No is the wound.

He bleeds for the yes.

He feeds on the yes.

The yes feeds him.

Yes makes him a god—

on a pedestal of nodding heads.

Yes makes him need:

yes.

III. COLLAPSE

A man addicted to the silence after yes.

A man afraid of the silence without it.

A man whose name

is louder than his voice.

Power is not what he holds—

it is what he fears losing.

He fears.

He fears,

and so he clutches.

He clutches,

and so he crushes.

He crushes,

and calls it order.

He calls it peace.

He calls it leadership.

He calls it destiny.

He is a man in power.

He is a man of want.

He is a man at war.

A man.

A man in power.

A man of want.

A man with power.

A man remade by want.

A man undone by power.

A man we’ve seen before.

A man we’ll see again.

For what it’s worth,

-Charlene Iris

One thought at a time.

One truth at a time. 

Because some epiphanies stay with you.