The definition of a man to me is morally driven. For good or ill, you will stand next to your ideals with courage and certainty. You will know who you are, but not to be defined so rigidly that opposition will be met bitterly.
Flexibility is paramount.

Though I know It is not an easy thing to muster a clear head in the midst of an argument, by contrast it is far too easy to write of it. But never forget, more good comes from wit than temperament.

I do not care for the way you carry yourself.
In fact I’d prefer you to shelf any ideas of who you are meant to be. By handshake, or appearance, or by words from me.

It is a scary thing to think that the truth of who we are is solely our responsibility. But if you decide to heed any advice from me, forget who you are ideally supposed to be.

When I first met you, I thought the world of you. At least, that’s what my memories tell me. In honesty, I probably didn’t consider you as anything more than normal in the beginning. I don’t have many memories of you left, and the few I do have are rose-tinted and faded to the background of my mind, residing in my dreams, in the words I write to chase after you, to pull out a memory of when I knew who I was. Back when we were together.

The truth is, I don’t know when you left an impression on me, and I don’t know why. Maybe it was something about the idea of the outcast and the black-sheep finding happiness together that spoke to the romantic in me. Whatever it was, it was real, God knows it was real. I wrote poems for you every day, you’re the reason I started in the first place, you know? But I’ve said that before.

I think I just want to know why you stuck around so much at the end of the day. When we parted ways, you stuck around for me and I don’t know why. You’ve colored every attempt at love since, and every time I try, I have to keep telling myself that the indifference I feel when looking in the eyes of someone else, is love, but that’s a lie. Or..is it?

I don’t know. Maybe at the end of the day, I keep chasing you because I want to know it meant something. I want the story to have a happy ending because I did the right thing. So I keep going. Finding you inside of another name. So far you’ve been married happily twice, and I’m still waiting...

By right and will of ink and quill,
The young prince sits atop his gilded throne,
But when aught runs dry and naught can fill,
What can stop the thoughts alone?

Alone is he, alone am I,
Trapped inside of what it means,
To reflect upon a time,
Where I was once a better me.

Where words flowed forth like sacred wine,
And from that alter leapt great praise,
When stars saw fit then to align,
And summon the great glory days.

Who am I in place of that,
but a shadow affixed to roaring flame?
Of passions high and blazing fast,
All praise be to faded name.

A great collapse, the way of life, shall see great men fall and feeble rise. Around the wheel the cycle goes, from noble birth to battle cry. The earth is my kingdom, for  kingdom will I die. Let not my name be forgotten, my every merit in life, tied to something so repeated, it nearly loses meaning. I the great king, emperor, chief, ruler, believe my duty to be divine. I number in the thousands, but this legacy is mine.

My words are not my own, but the echoes of a man who has long since died, and left to me in his will, a blueprint for how to live his life. I’d like to tell you that this death occurred at the site of a dashed love, believe me, I would. But the fact of the matter is, I simply do not know. And the lie I have clung to these many years has grown old and tired. So instead, I will tell you the truth, or attempt to.

For the last few years, I have not felt like myself. I have begun to question who “myself” truly is. Spare me any notions of a high school grad taking a year off of their studies to find themselves, I’m aware of the parallels and I despise them. I’ve spent far more than a year in this predicament and I would wish it upon no man. Yet someone has the audacity to believe they can discover the whole of what it means to exist in a year? Let alone believe such knowledge to be a benefit to them. The very notion has me shaking my head in sympathies!

But I digress. That is what I do after all. You see I am a writer by passion, but there is the problem, passion. For nearly a decade now my writing has felt lacking, hollow. Not to others apparently, but very much so for myself. Friends and loved ones tell me I write fairly well for someone of my age, but they do not know what I do. If they were privy to how the words sound before they reach the page, if only they could see how the world looks before I touch it, they would see how truly hollow my depictions are.

This is my problem. At one point, I felt comfortable with my own skill in creating a fantastical world. Now however I feel as if I am continually attempting to build the Taj Mahal, and getting credit for building the Hagia Sophia, or is it a table from Ikea? I can never remember.

Friends! Drunken-men! Lend me your beers!
Let not the woes of day to day,
Drive all hope of toast away,
And raise to me,
Your younger kin,
Your glass of beer or shot or toniced gin,
And I will count you as a friend in this, the greatest of places!

From dreams to sleep she drifts between,
Where visions dance of what has been,
In symbols marked by fates decree,
What strange things will she see?

Visions of old, or something new?
Connected thoughts of me and you?
Under light of lonely moon,
Bathed in pale and longing hue.

Or maybe wild chaotic fun?
Dancing with fairies to belief of none,
Perhaps there she’ll meet a king,
Both proud and twisted, a scheming thing.

And there they strike a bargain deal,
To a baser nature will he appeal,
To make a star of boring youth,
And place her next to lonely moon.

All to wish that she had not,
As lovely dreams are all but lost,
And in their place a nightmare state,
As startled sound jolts her to wake.

For hours there she longs and yearns,
For land of dreams to please return,
She thinks of him, the fairy king,
And casts aside the suffering,

Surely it was only dream,
You can’t make real a mythic thing,
Hours pass and she ventures back,
To the wonder of a dancing pack.

Around a throne of golden trim,
They make a play at behest of him,
They pause at her, but carry on.
For none dare cross great Oberon.

She takes a step and suddenly,
From behind a curtain she bounds and leaps.
“Great fairy king, ‘tis I you seek,
For a hand in marriage I offer thee.”

As if compelled she speaks the words,
With puzzled look as they are heard,
And walks onto the center stage,
As other actors seemed to fade.

All at once both there and gone,
Appears the great king Oberon,
To take her hand and lead away,
As per the deal that there was made.

An instant passed and there they were,
Amongst the stars above the earth,
And with a smile the king declared,
“Let no one say I am not fair.”

She cried in fear and looked around,
But from her lips there came no sound,
Too late she saw what she’d become,
A star opposed to glowing sun.

All to wish that she was not,
As lovely dreams had all been lost,
And in their place a nightmare state,
As startled sound jolts her to wake.

She looked up then towards the sky,
To catch a twinkling in her eye,
A lone star she’d never seen,
Had taken place where none had been.

For hours there she longed and yearned,
For land of dreams to please return,
She thought of him, the fairy king,
But cast aside her suffering,

Surely it was only dream?
You can’t make real a mythic thing!
Hours pass and she ventures back,
To the wonder of a dancing pack.