Portrait of Myself as Vlad the Impaler
After a few hundred years
I grew weary of being remembered
for my cruelty and bloodlust
even though I brought it
upon myself
by impaling my enemies on stakes
on the grounds of my castle,
often taking meals while sitting
in the midst of their squirming,
screaming bodies as they died,
nailing turbans to the heads
of visiting Ottomans when they didn't show
the proper respect,
and performing countless
other acts of malice.
At the time it brought me
orgasmic ecstasy,
and my legend grew
feeding on fear and veneration,
like the Old Testament God.
But these things faded
over centuries. I was dead
but my hell consisted of memories,
of reliving the horrors
I had perpetrated
so that I felt some relief
when Mr. Stoker wrote his novel,
transforming me into a supernatural
creature of the night,
living on the blood of victims
because I had no choice.
Such a hell was comparable
to the one I was experiencing,
almost.
But further years softened me
in the minds of millions,
transforming me first into
an eccentric but lovable
grandfather, a patriarch
to a family of friendly monsters,
and then into a mascot
promoting chocolate flavored cereal
on Saturday mornings,
and finally into a benign,
almost avuncular eccentric
with a passion for numbers
and a quirky laugh,
whose main vocation in life
was teaching children to count. - Jeff Barnes
