he was terrified of the dark,
and so he chased the sunset across the horizon
stumbling after it with aching ankles
and clinging to the sunset’s wrist,
fearful that he would trip
stumble
fall behind
be left alone and feel the cold soak his bones
this lover of the light ran himself into exhaustion and,
tripping,
stumbling,
fell behind
to be left alone
but the sunset stilled, blazing across the sky,
to lift the desperate, ardent disciple of its rays
into its arms,
and carried the poor straggler
until he no longer feared, nor knew, the dark.

Achilles does not sleep.

Instead, he seeks the lover’s embrace and curved lips alongside which he went to war;
Those same that he did not find,
Once the dark mist had come swirling down over his eyes
And his soul went winging down to the House of Death,
with a soldier’s sigh of relief.
He had whispered in Charon’s ear, “Take me to him.”
Charon had rowed on, but held his silence.

By way of greeting, a thousand faces turned away,
And no trace of his beloved’s sweet smile as he disembarked, no warm hand to take his own.

“Patroklus,” he cries,
And goes unheard.

Thus; Achilles does not sleep.
He is Achilles; he does not wait.
He is Achilles; instead, he aches.
He is Achilles; instead, he searches.

Over the horizon, he chases Patroklus’ laugh and the turn of his wrist.
He lingers in all the shadowed corners of eternity,
Leafs through the pages of unforgiving, unyielding posterity,
Whispers “Patroklus, best of the Myrmidons” and sends his name through the winds.

The headstrong runner does not drag his feet as he scours the world,
As he chases ghosts across the face of the earth.

Restless, he is never still,
Knows that each step must carry him closer,
Knows that each ragged cry may be the one
That is finally answered,
Each rendition the wound to be finally salved.

He haunts, and is haunted.
‘I did not feel it,’ he thinks. 'It should have been as though Hektor’s pierced my side, in turn. Did they not say we were one?’
As if what he felt, when they told him, had not been enough.
(Scamander would disagree).

One day, smiling among the cypress, he will cease.
One day, the thousand faces turned away will melt to the one alone that within itself holds his heart.
One day, his greeting will be that sweet smile that he found only in the dawn.
One day, a warm hand will take his own, and the word with which his beloved left him will be the same as that which retrieves him:

'Ἀχιλλέυς.’

Until the day when his heart pours out golden,
Achilles will not sleep.

I like to think that Icarus smiled as he fell,
That the last sensation of Helios’ sweet fingers across his face lingered
And left him warm as the wind rushed past him,
And that he smiled at the last sight of his burning love
As the ocean embraced him,
Tender and eternal as a coffin.

Heart moved that stands now still;
Don't mourn the new martyrs,
Remember the days when you were they.

Burning flame now drowned in ash;
Try not to weep at the war drums,
Keep quiet your dirges, and let them burn.

Forgotten child of the revolution;
They know not your suffering yet,
Hide the torn flag in the corner and sing along.

Troy burns,
and her walls cave in around her
like a mother’s arms,
embracing her children sweetly
and sinking to her knees amid the swirling dust.

in the ashes, they fell her embrace
as they bleed and writhe and stare up at the smoke-obscured sky,
flames closing in around the edges of their vision
as their city burns and folds in over them,
putting them sweetly to sleep to the tune of victory songs in other tongues.

do not mourn!
we did not die!
do not weep!
we still remain!

we still cast long shadows
in unseen halls,
we batter at your windows
and cry your name
when long night falls.

our wounds do not heal
and our smiles do not fade
and our barricades hold strong
and you remember still our song.

we stormed Olympus and flung our armour down on the craggy peak,
huffed and collapsed down into the dirt,
and someone asked where all the gods were.
“we were stupid,” you shot back,
“did you think they were here? they are everywhere,
and within us. we are here – so are the gods.”
“why did you come, then?”
you shrugged, armour flashing.
“the view.”

only when she smiled at me from her death bed did I realise that she had always known; always known that she had been born for martyrdom. if I had realised sooner, I think, I would not have let her go to war.
as per the cliché, it only became obvious in hindsight – I spent countless nights wondering how I hadn’t noticed sooner.
how did I not realise, the night that she propped her feet up against my bedroom wall and told me that I’d inherit the earth?
“And what about you?” I had rolled my head sideways to look over at her, tearing my eyes away from the cracked ceiling.
she hadn’t done the same, had only smiled and breathed out softly. that was all that it had taken for me to forget about it, all that it had taken to convince me to change the topic.
it was so obvious; I see that now. people would tell me that she never joked, and I’d reply that she did so constantly.
now I see that she was serious.
I see it in every time she told me that she would never grow old; “**** me,” she had laughed, “If I ever reach thirty.”
being young, I didn’t want to grow old, either, and I jokingly agreed.
but thirty isn’t old. now, I am old.
she should be old, too.
she had been all fleeting smiles and elbows and smoke that curled through the air. she had been fearsome and secretive and warm arms wrapping around my waist.
when she called her flag a cross to bear, I had offered to share the load and she told me no, it wasn’t mine to bear.
in hindsight, I know that she never wanted me to die with her. she had always known that she would leave me here, and she had known that I would let her go.
dying suited her – she did it with grace (she didn’t too much with grace, she was always in her own way). her pain-tightened jaw didn’t disrupt the soft smile, the tears in her unfocussed eyes didn’t make them less bright. she didn’t struggle, she didn’t call for help, she simply asked for me to stay with her, to sit by her. I wasn’t supposed to cry, I knew that, so I kept the tears at bay or wiped them off on my ***** sleeve, because I was slowly realising that she wanted me to happy, that maybe I should have been happy about this – it was what she wanted, wasn’t it?
martyrdom put her at peace, martyrdom made her glow; afterwards, I wasn’t sure whether or not I should mourn her.
she had been happy, with blood on her lips and in her hair.
and so I was happy, with an ache in my chest.

it itches
just below the skin, it itches
i itch
for burning throats and singing skies and skin torn open
feet untethered and bruising the ground
for clarity and racing wind and chaos
for something (anything) raw
i need to shatter
to be ripped apart
i need new tastes in this stale mouth
new thoughts in this static, stagnant brain
new ways for my muscles to ache

today is static
suspended in air
the moment of hesitation at the height of an upward swing
this house i have not left holds its breath
today, i exist in the space between heartbeats
time doesn't pass, it floats
today is the day to nap, to laze, to lie on a halcyon mattress and stare at the sleeping ceiling
today is sunday come on saturday
and my bones hum

with slender steps & silent fingers
he creeps through the breathholding house
as Hypnos plucks at his mind and the night chill runs her cold nails across his skin
he shrugs all off and surges on through the dim
rustling still, frozen air as he tries to rub free the heavy lull on his eyes and the ink spilled below them by too many nights such as this
the world yawns cavernous around and for him and threatens to swallow him whole

You would have said, seeing the thoughtful reflection of his eye, that he had already...been through the revolutionary apocalypse.*

I live in fear that I will die and meet him;
Liberty’s marble lover who once proudly proclaimed that
the nineteenth century was great, but the twentieth century will be happy.
I fear that I will meet him,
that he will ask if he was right with eager breath and waiting smile
and reach behind my eyes to scour my memory for the world he left behind,
for the happiness he prophesied from his makeshift plinth.
I fear that those burning eyes will dull with the aroma of burning flesh,
with the din of anguish and horror,
with the cold fingers of disillusion and resignation that pushed themselves into the minds of those still living,
with the happiness that he foretold overshadowed by the horrors our age has cloaked itself in.
I fear that I will have to apologise (or worse, that I will be able to say nothing)
I fear the downturn of that haughty lip
I fear the cracking of marble

it’s too much like déjà vu
circumstances change but the feeling is familiar
like an itchy blanket that you swore you got rid of
but here it is again, to scratch at your skin
and make you forget what it’s like to lie comfortably
i really thought i’d never itch this way again

the sunlight shows us too much
i prefer the fluorescent lights in shop windows
or the melting pools of humming gold that streetlights spew
to show me the shadows and fleeting faces
the dark clustering in the hollows and on the plains of a face
is far lovelier to behold than the light of day revealing all
  and beating back shadows with a burning, relentless fist

when you can barely bear the weight of yourself,
you must wonder;
how does the earth not crumble beneath our feet?
and how does Atlas bear it?
does he still feel the ache?
or has he simply become it?

what curious eye does she turn to us all!
with such anticipation does the gilded pen hover over the parchment of human kind,
carefully awaiting each glory (each fall)!

how many clamour towards her,
how many raw, desperate voices shriek for attention,
how many anxious fingers upon her robe?

and yet how rarely moved, that waiting, inquisitive brow,
how rarely inspired to take a name, a date, an episode!

(of course, she makes her constant notes, but these are not what we remember)

those lucky few are branded to the page, tied irrevocably to this earth, to our minds, their names etched along our bones,
she points the ink-stained finger at those to be made immortal

of course, she is want to be fickle; she turns away the eager eye, and the song goes unsung
(lucky are those upon whom her attention is forced; think 1832)

be mindful of her, if you clamour;
feel the eyes on your back, the gaze at your heel,
write your name upon her scroll and into the sky.