This is the hill I will die on.
I choose to stand on the high ground,
And fight in the war.

I will be bloodied.
Bruised.
Broken.

But I will not run to the safety,
In the home at the bottom.
I will not cry for mercy,
As you raise your blade above my bowed head.

I will stay.
I will empty your lungs of hot air,
And shove you over the edge.
I will watch your body lie at the bottom,
Pointed at gruesome angles.

For in your one-sided battle to knock me down,
I have turned the tide.
This place that I have chosen to rest
Is no longer my grave,
But yours.

I have ended wars single handedly,
Brought gods broken to their knees,
And dragged down the very lights
From the gods of Heaven.

But my greatest victory
Was always that I was the fire,
That sparked your brightest smiles.

Vultures are the holiest creatures,
Tending with honor to the dead.
Bowed low to kiss the corpse,
With death covered wings and bare head.

They whisper to the frigid flesh,
Of words we could never hear, nor see.

“Your old name is not your own.
This dying earth; Not your king.
So forget the seeds that you have sown,
For I rename you “everything.”

I feel Hollow.
Barren.
Empty.

That hollowness erodes my body,
leaving a trail of decay.
Cracks crawl through my brittle bones,
shattering my skull,
fragmenting my thoughts.

A carmine-colored river floods into my caving lungs,
before dragging itself up my throat.
The metallic taste slowly overwhelms my mouth,
and seeps through my gapped teeth.
My glass smile falls and shatters.

Terror grips what was once my voice,
holding sound captive-
my call for help erased by despair.
Only strangled sobs exist.
I'm left choking on my own life force.

Each sob collects upon my face;
a veil of tears cover my broken visage.
Shrouding me from prying eyes that encompass judgemental gazes.

Without even seeing,
their stares spear my soul and blacken my heart.
The forgotten, grayed ash
smothers out all that remains.

My rotted husk: a void, a dismal skeleton.
A vast emptiness that nothing can fill.

Broken.
Decayed.
Hollow.

It's what I am.