King, Jack, or Joker

(an existential poem)

I was born between the shuffle
and the deal—
not royal,
not wild,
just real.

The King stands tall in his mirrored suit,
gold-lined lies in a kingdom mute.
He speaks in absolutes,
names fate like prey—
but every King gets cleared
one day.

The Jack stays restless,
half a man,
half myth,
still learning how to stand.
A blade in his belt,
a ghost in his eyes—
too old for dreams,
too young for lies.

The Joker grins without a throne,
a question mark carved into bone.
He plays no hand
but haunts them all,
the jest that laughs
when empires fall.

I asked the Queen if love was worth
the suits we wear,
the games we birth.
She wept in hearts,
but spoke in spades:
“Every throne
is built upon charades.”
“No rule is safe, no throne secure—
we shuffle roles, but never cure.”

So call me misprint,
call me scar,
the card that slipped
beneath the bar.
And deal me face-up,
burn the lies—
I’m no King in glass disguise,
no Jack with something yet to prove,
no Joker shrugging every move.

Just one last face,
truth-smudged, crease-born—
a myth refused,
a mask unworn.

And when the deck forgets my name,
will it matter
who won the game?

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©️ Copyright

© 2025 Cassian Delmare. All rights reserved.

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🃏 Why I Wrote This

This poem is for anyone who’s never quite fit the roles they were handed.
It’s a meditation on identity, illusion, and the quiet power of refusal.
Sometimes, being the misprint is the most honest thing you can be.

Symbolism Breakdown

The King
Power. Control. Certainty.
He speaks in absolutes and rules with polished confidence, but only within the boundaries of a game he can’t escape.

“Every King gets cleared one day.”
No power is permanent when the table folds.

The Jack
Youth. Ambition. Confusion.
Too old for dreams, too young for lies. He hasn’t reached the throne, but innocence is long gone. He’s the in-between, the myth trying to become man.

The Joker
Chaos. Irony. Detachment.
He doesn’t play to win or lose; he haunts the game. A symbol of absurdism, the Joker laughs when empires fall, like Camus’ stranger carved into card form.

The Queen
Intuition. Love. Sorrow.
Her voice brings ache and clarity.

“We shuffle roles, but never cure.”
She names the wound no throne can fix, revealing that beneath all roles, we carry the same loss.

The Speaker (the “I”)
The misprint. The scar.
Not a King, Jack, or Joker, but the card that slipped the system.
A self-aware outsider who asks the most honest question:

If the deck forgets me, does it even matter who wins?

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🎭 Themes

• The illusion of identity
The masks—King, Jack, Joker—aren’t who we are.
They’re roles we’ve been assigned.
They were never ours.

• The inevitability of fate
Every card gets played. Every figure gets discarded.
Even the King ends up in the discard pile.

• The refusal to conform
Not rebellion—clarity.
The speaker opts out because the game was never real.

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💭 Let’s Talk

Which role have you been dealt lately—King, Jack, Joker, or something the deck forgot to name?
Drop your answer in the comments or share with someone who’s rewriting the rules.

This poem is for you if you’ve ever asked yourself:

• Who am I beyond the roles I play?
• What if I don’t fit the game?
• What happens when I stop pretending to win?

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📣 Want to support this work?

If this piece shuffled something loose in you—
Restack it. Leave a thought below.
Or deal it to someone still searching for their card.

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Your voice keeps me playing this dangerous game.

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