A beginning is simple, or say it's been said.
I differ in thinking, my heart one of dread.
That first step is cosmic, in breadth and in weight.
It harries both shoulders, Atlas made lame.

To face fear and fight folly, to bear shame and know loss.
Failure without trying seems the easier lot.
To drown without burning, wings shapen wax;
this, my instincts gather - thus, my spoke snaps.

For allowed or barred, followed or infamed,
immortalized, idolized, beloved or lame;
Man is Man, too mortal by half;
ad astra, I think - perfection, I gasp.

A goal, I breathe; a sin, most certain.
A thing I need, marrow and bourbon;
for the soul and mind, for my body and heart.
It stops and pushes, my dread, my art.

Beneath burdened skies,
over boiled earth,
breathing of toxic mystique;
we or I,
all the same die-
-the world won't end, regardless.

upon reflection, the universe is a suicidal *******
wrought
torn, painfully borne
a sea of flame named Love.

I could rhyme each word, every one absurd,
Licking and kicking and assiduously drinking myself down
nonsensically.

But that is not I, who loves the dis-
-jointed feeling of reading people;
those broken souls,
poetic blows,
heralds of laughter and pain.

-spoke:
"You are king. That means something."

"Does it?" I asked aloud, wondering if:
"It must," my sister asserted. I-
-disagreed with a flattering hum,
rejoining, "So you say-"
-for:
"So I do. So did Mother and Father. So did your children."
"So did your wife and citizens, too."

I knew, "I know," and she laughed bellsome tears,
sounding of rain and lilies o'er my favourite bridge.
They splattered the Eos, overlooking our city, run red by the dawn.

"Hah!"

My sister's favourite was Nyx, a shadowed thing-
-brick and mortar, and rarely touched;
it sat far below, and stretched half as much;
a bridge of ill repute.

"Do you think it true?"
"Your honesty is real?"
"Always and forever," my sister replied,
half in and out my ear.

I let loose a lax breath, streaks ran down my face,
dawning red, featherlight lace.

Nyx was known for dying, darkened by the river,
furiously cleansing itself,
flooding tearful currents towards our city dear.
Dead bodies were common sights from those swept off its thick;
our people, dead bodies, gone like morning mist.

'How terribly morose on such a blessed day.'

I thought of other things, roughly hewn.
I sighed, and my sister sighed too.
Together we looked upon our city,
feeling old, far from youth.

I loved our people, like I did my bridge.
The world went quiet, the world went dim…

"If king I must be, then rule I shall," and my sister-
-ever clever
said:
"Very well,"
"What is your first-"
"Edict?" I asked, and wonder oh wonder,
for I spoke first and fast,
she was rent speechless, wordless phantom of the…

"Hah," I laughed,
"My sister is dead!"

Like Mother and Father, my wife,
and them:
My children many.

Down I looked, upon my ruin.

Further down sat Nyx, and below my feet Eos,
Both of them strong, unlike I,
king of a broken people,
leaping without fear.
Red and splattered bone,
I-