The Emperor’s New Glow

He drank the sun and called it tea, and slept upon a bed of tone,
His breath aligned with lunar tides, his thoughts now claimed the astral zone.
He’d given up on mortal needs, on bread, on rest, on pain, on age,
And every flaw he’d once possessed was filtered out or cleansed with sage.

“The body is a temple now,” he said, adorned in gleaming skin,
“I’ve reached a state where hunger dies and sadness cannot enter in.”
He wore no robes but dripped with oils, and crystals clung to every limb,
A sculpted god of glowing health whose ego outshone even him.

“Behold the Emperor!” they cried, “He fasts from fear and thrives on light!
He’s hacked the soul, reversed his cells, and now his aura glows at night!”
He’d banned all mirrors from the realm, “They judge,” he said, “they only bind.
What matters is the energy; the flesh is just a fearful mind.”

And so his court all played along, wore hemp, and hummed, and chewed on air.
They praised his breathwork, kissed his feet, and whispered mantras to his hair.
No illness dwelled within those halls, at least not one they dared to name.
To cough was weakness. Grief? A crime. And aging bore the mark of shame.

The peasants too began to pose, to journal joy with daily flair.
They bought the books, the apps, the cleanse, and filtered truth to match the glare.
The food grew raw, the speech grew vague, until all words meant only peace,
And anyone who mourned or frowned was branded sick, in need of “release.”

But deep inside the palace gates, behind the glass and scent of lime,
The Emperor began to shrink beneath the weight of his own mime.
He hadn’t slept in seven weeks, his skin was taut, his teeth grew thin,
But every ache he felt, he named a toxin still not purged from within.

He hired sages, glistening white, to chant him whole with feathered flutes.
They bathed him in electromagnetic streams and ground him near the lemon roots.
Each day he claimed to reach new heights, to “shed his carbon, cell by cell.”
But even saints must face the flesh, and even ghosts must know their shell.

One day, a girl, a cleaner’s child, was caught inside his sacred gym,
Where salt lamps cast a gentle haze and monks in silence taught of him.
She stared in awe, then squinted hard, and murmured loud enough to sting:
“Why does the Emperor look so tired, if he’s become an endless spring?”

The courtiers gasped. The air grew tense. The monks unrolled their gauzy scrolls.
They said, “You lack enlightenment. His body’s not what makes him whole.”
They tried to guide her from the room to sage away her errant thought,
But word had spread beyond the walls, and soon, her question sparked a lot.

One baker asked, “If pain is fake, why does it burn when I collapse?”
A teacher said, “If joy is all, then why does silence feel like mental relapse?”
A doctor said, “I prayed and fasted, swallowed light and dry beliefs,
But no mantra healed my mother’s cough or pulled my brother from his grief.”

The Emperor appeared again, his pupils wide, his posture strained,
His arms outstretched like supple reeds, though trembling and not contained.
He whispered, “I’m becoming pure, just one more purge, and I ascend.”
But now the people watched with eyes that didn’t blur or make pretend.

They saw the bruises on his ribs, the blackened teeth from endless cleanse,
The trembling knees, the thready pulse, the smile that cracked at both its ends.
And someone said, “He’s not divine. He’s not immune to blood or bone.
He’s just a man who feared his death and tried to detox as a way to atone.”

Another voice: “And we believed, because we feared to just be flawed.
We bathed in glow, but lost our warmth, and turned our joy into a fraud.”
And so they stripped the palace clean of matcha bars and yoga thrones.
They lit no sage, they lit their minds, and gave their sadness softer homes.

The Emperor, still clinging tight to notions built on shame and gleam,
Was left to chant alone at dawn, a ghost in search of one last dream.
They offered help, a bed, some bread, but he refused the kindness shown.
He whispered, “Suffering is weakness,” then collapsed, at last, alone.

And in the garden where he sat and tried to outshine breath and death,
They placed a stone, engraved with care, and roses twined its humble wreath:
“He chased the light so hard he lost the joy of simply being dim.
He feared the weight of humanness, and built a world too clean for him.”

 

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