Society of Captives

I kept your concentration for long enough.
I kept my promise to call your bluff.
I kept the blessed wine and holy bread.
I kept you gossiping with the voices in your head.
I kept your foreign language translated.
I kept your ultramodern madness incarcerated.
I kept you building walls, working you all in vain.
I kept you bleeding in our clinics, cussing at the pain.
I kept you thinking that you were the prodigy of this age.
I kept you fretting and strutting your way across this wooden stage.
I kept you speaking of revenge, lending you skin in the game.
I kept you spitting lies to douse yourself in flame.
I kept the ashes from which you rose.
I kept the feathers, but I burned your clothes.
I kept the ropes that tied you down.
I kept your kingdom; I broke your crown.