The Queen

If they won’t love her, they will revere her.
If they won’t revere her, they will fear her.
Oil slick blood splatters rainbows across her chest,
an empty cavity, a metal cage.
You strain to hear a heartbeat rattling inside,
a little pulse of human, but there are only grinding gears.
Her crown is built from the bones you give her,
hung and strung with teardrops squeezed from your desperate eyes,
shining like the jewels of a queen.
She nurses you on smoke-choked air,
swaddles you in smothering darkness,
and you drape her in admiration.
She sings you songs of isolation,
binds you in frozen chains,
and you embrace her,
and you call it mercy.