you seem well:

A spring without flowers,

it was all a fever dream.

Hills of emerald green,

but nothing else till it met

the sky.

A liminal monochrome.

The color of envy.

The same color as your eyes.

Can we make it back to the garden?

Still hanging in the setting sun.

Her web still bound us,

it’s lace woven in dying light.

The stars don’t shine like they used to.

Even the gold in my purse has faded.

Their luster hiding in memory.

Not mine though, I won’t force myself.

We walked the path of the forgotten god.

Vines and brambles line the way.

You could see where death laid her hand.

Ice holding your breath hostage.

Currents as gentle as a lover’s breath.

I found myself in your embrace.

Your withered branches, knotted tight.

I sought memory, I sought truth.

Every flower blooming, sickeningly fragrant.

The red petals were wildfire, the blues a calming sea.

I wander through both, losing myself.

Eventually even the pain feels soft.

Like a lover’s touch, or the crack of a whip.

I don’t make a distinction.

That weakness struck me like a fever.

It sought to eat my body, burn my flesh.

I found death in the fire,

I found purification.

Became a child of the sacred ash.

I knew the tenets, the connection.

The breath of flame, heat haze in my lungs.

I brought it wholesale, forged in wyrm-fire.

Tempered steel and expectation.

I could’ve kept you warm,

taught you the language dead men speak.

What mattered most is already gone.

The coffin lid closed.

Hell if I know the time.

I wore a watch for that, I was a different man.

My feet may ache, but they still know the way.

Writing eulogies onto tombstones, I’ve got more of ‘em then paper.

It was our lot to suffer from the burden of sin.

The first time I died myself was was under a moon like this.

I glimpsed what looked holy and it spat upon me.

Prostrated before the deified I was trampled underfoot.

I was forged without purpose out of a salted field.

We gave our bodies over to the rot.

The skittering masses,

the pulsing unlife.

Poked full of holes, swarming.

Sewn back together with hyphae,

marionettes of flesh and fungus.

Waged war for so long,

We’d forgotten what peace felt like.

I feel her chained to my chest,

the heaviness my burden to bear.

A heart made of twisted wire and string.

You said my name and I could tell,

it came from the pit of your stomach.

You held it there with your bile,

your venom.

I wore it just the same as I always had.

Around my neck like a collar, tying me to service.

I just wanted to be held even if it was in contempt.

Played around a bit, the words floating in my mind.

Lacing them into sentences to set free on your tongue.

Touching fingers and feeling the blades on my palms.

I never wanted to feel that burden,

it can be impossibly painful to dream.

The city is still alive, you could hear her heartbeat.

Grating on the skin, wearing thin on the street.

Hold it close, a white hot disc of molten steel.

I let it sit on my tongue.

Can you hear the popping flesh?

A coin ready to be struck.

The ferryman will have his due.

I don’t own this hand,

at least no more than you own yours.

Can you feel how the world shakes?

Light dying with a whimper, universes crumbling.

So it goes, as all things do.

Its something magical,

to be there at the end.

I can’t believe the rumors.

Another dead man,

a life like a candle’s flame.

Huffed out all at once.

I wish I still saw beauty in the sunset.

Every pin set my skeleton in place,

a marionette on strings.

How lucky to be so flammable.

Ill find your spark,

let it build my fire.

If I have to be burned,

I’d rather it be by the sun.