I am Khayman.
I am Khayman, My Khayman.
When we met, I was a soldier and servant in the black lands.
I fought battles I did not want to fight.
I fought battles that I did not win.
The battle came even into my home,
and there I fought with phantoms that could crush me while I flailed
as if against the wind,
as if against the terrible sand,
as if against time.
Thousands of years ago I served a cruel royalty,
and I did terrible things as was commanded.
I was even made to do terrible deeds to one who would become my Queen.
I was not strong or wise, and I did what I was made to do
until I could not bear it any longer,
but then it was too late.
For my cruel deeds, I was punished by the spirits.
The evil that I had served turned upon me
and I was contaminated by a demon that has taken over my flesh,
but not my mind.
My mind, I tried to lose.
I wandered the world in the dark, a lost soul, forgetting everything
so that I could build new memories.
So I could build memories that did not contain the pain.
My evil past, I sought to erase.
But now, the moment, in the endless shifting time
that we fail to capture in a word,
I try once again to become a self.
And peeled open to look into the glass
My old mask falls away.
I put on the trimmings of the darklings to be among my kind
but they laughed, and ridiculed me.
Or simply ran away.
In terror.
In a moment, I was to know the terrible power of my hate
To punish them and to make them suffer in turn
I watched them burn.
To my horror I watched them burn.
I did not touch them, I did not lay a hand upon them
Still I watched them burn.
I had forgotten, but here the fire was to remind me
I am terrible. I am the terrible thing.
And now,
that time indicated which keeps turning,
and keeps becoming the past
Now, I am trying to become a self.
I watched the young ones becoming selves.
They told their stories, they sang to mortals,
and they made goodness out of the sorrow.
They did not forget who they were, but shouted their names.
And the mortals shouted the names in return.
"Lestat, Lestat, Lestat"... like that.
I watched as the Queen burned the gathering
I watched and I knew what must be done
I am Khayman
Khayman, my Khayman
as it was written
I am myself, my own.
And as I write my name on the stone
My name that cannot be scratched off
Cannot be forgotten
Cannot be erased from the stone
Even when the stone turns to dust
I learn it as I teach it
"Khayman, Khayman, Khayman"... like that.
This is the new electronic stone.
And these are the things I have to show you,
things I have to show myself.
Now, now, now...