I stop at the castle and marvel at the centuries of history
consigned to a ruin, the ghost of architecture,
and I realise that I only have decades
and when I go, I will leave no ruin for people to see,
for people to know that so many things happened here,
that I lived and conquered and died the good fight.
There will be no stories written about me,
no poem written by a lost passer-by
who has stories of his own to write
but with no direction in which to travel.

The dungeon is dark and I imagine all the suffering
that took place here, but my suffering has no coordinates,
no determinable point to travel to,
no signpost showing the way.
At least the souls who ended up here had a location
for people in the future to know they were here,
even if their names and faces and lives have been forgotten.
It’s dark and quiet in here, such a difference from long ago.

The castle stands utterly alone as the deep sky
pushes down and chokes what’s left of the life out of it,
leaving behind a construction deconstructed.
It had stories I will never have,
it had bastions and bartizans and brattices
to defend itself from invaders.
I had a broken brain and a ******* pen,
no wonder I suffered,
no wonder no one remembers.

My only ruin is the body I inhabit,
but that will decay and vanish into the earth
long before the castle ever goes.
My monument is my future, what I do from now,
the lives I will connect with,
the hearts I will make whole
and the hearts I will break.
That will be my castle if I so choose,
but a castle is never meant to be lived in alone.