do you remember when i was made of gold? these days i much more resemble tarnished silver, buried bronze...
i dont fill these shoes anymore, i barely remember how they felt to walk in
these old words dont stick to me anymore
praise lives in the past, and i wonder
what am i worth now?

what does a prodigy become when the golden glow dims?
what does a prodigy become when the sun goes out?
where do you turn when the bush stops burning?
an unstoppable force becomes an immovable object

icarus, i believe
is heavily overwritten
especially by me

but golden eyes
and golden wings
never melt
from the mind
of a poet;

it's our apollos
that drive our pens
to begin with

he keeps making wings
to have fleeting touches
with the sun
and every time, he falls

all he has for building
is what he finds in his heart
but wax always melts in the heat;
icarus & apollo were not meant to be

and yet:
he falls into the ocean again
and again
and again.

'perhaps,' he prays, young and naive
'that great star too, wishes
he were not made of flame
so that, for more than a moment, he might know me'

caught between the sun and the moon
both become lost to me
and i find i am nothing more
than the vast and endless sky inbetween

this will end in catastrophe
in fire and ash and empty feelings
and yet id rather set myself aflame
than prevent armageddon
however it strikes, may it strike
may it lay me to rest
oh, but i sit idly on the stone
these tremors of the hand curse my matchsticks

fun and games
and bright lights on strings
stuffed plushies & autumn leaves
and kindness from every
person i see

until
you remove the carnival glass
and im seen for what i am
and the carnival goers
in all their own carnival masks
do not understand

ive spoken my truth
so they pack up the stands
pile bright costumes
into dark vans

and i find myself left
with an empty field
of cold air

dear prince, your eyes seem light as the night
when heavy, new, and moonless
pray tell, where has luna strayed this time?
i know the truth, but to know a soul
and to be shown are separate things

every smoking, electric chemical
balled into coals burning red and hot
white knuckles and eyes like swords
sharp and blinding in the sun
i light a match in the forest
and he throws himself into me,
inferno on his lips, in bared teeth

are we fighting? am i failing?
to **** a dragon that's already killed me
your breath is hot. your scales, rough,
are calloused hands that grip my collar
im breathless, but i havent thrown a punch
i see you falter.

are we fighting?
are you sure?

your hair was golden blonde
and your eyes were equated to stars
far more than once
by an ocean of sands within an hour glass

his hair was shimmering bronze
and his eyes were blue as the sea
and he saw you
and he smiled as he answered your loving plea

i assume he felt like four leaf clovers, and shiny lotteries
oh all the sands in the hour glasses
when i spotted you among the masses
couldnt match the yellow hyacinths
that sprouted so surely from me-

for you walked in
hand in hand.

you are an angel bathed in light
as anyone could see
does it make me so blind to shift my gaze;
to know the light was he?

you have known a world
in which the world is nonexistent
and so you value every bug
and every bird
and comes across your windowsill
you hold them all close
and sing them to sleep

and yet, i continue to observe
that to have lived in death for so long
makes one so hungry for life,
so that even after a hundred lifetimes
of living-
you will maul and **** and tear apart
a thousand butterflies
and a million men
to run from the silence of the void

the warmth in your eyes explodes into fire
no, you refuse to die

the air is thick, hot, and forest green
with the daggers youre always staring
i cant help but sigh; theyre always for me
i never meant to destroy you
but ill take your gaze however it comes
you destroy me too

his eyes were so many hues of gray
and i didnt quite understand back then
how they could fill me with color
but a hundred lifetimes later, oh
i know its because theyre a half of a whole
and i always come to know them
far better than my own

this time around, i remember
every other monster we've slain
and every other story we've told
but every time, every time
ive fallen back onto eyes
that are so many hues of gray

some days i feel that
despite the weight of legends
that behold our names
in the light of golden inkwells
and the pull of the tide
that had ****** us together
with the inevitability of a crashing wave
that we are not so much like
the sun and the moon
for the eclipse is a collision of epic proportions
for the eclipse is a parting of a thousand red seas
the eclipse, explosively desperate, and as rare as can be

no, i find myself
something much closer to earth
deep in the ground and deep in the dirt
for you meet me like a blue sky
meets the planet below
and you kiss me at the horizon line
all-enveloping, steady, constant, sweet
sometimes in the dancing hues
of some celestial body

but most days,
yes, most days
you are the photo in the locket
that my soul has always carried
and you are the peace
in always arriving home

though you may follow me to the ocean
and its raging waters,
to be held by you
is to be held by the shore

the fire in the tower outshines the moon
nearly as blinding as the darkness encasing it
raging storms collide with my eyes
and echo each others lightning
blade plunged into my chest, my heart still beats
but as i am pushed from the railing,
forget-me-nots and pomegranate seeds fleeing my fingertips,
i know i will be dead before i hit the water

i ask you:

as you stood before the mountain peaks
do you remember its name
do you remember the bite of the frost
on the fingers you dont have anymore?
do you remember the cold and how it clouded
the vision youve gone so long without?

"when submerged in darkness,"
you say
"one grasps at the light-
no matter how deeply it stings,
for it is something, anything-
in a world of nothing, nothing,
nothing"

your silhouette falters, you shake until your shape is unrecognizable

though i test your limits with the pain of postcards, like scalpels in your side

i must admit: i am sorry.

four arms
four legs
two faces

"haven't i-
haven't i seen you before?"

the medals on my chest weigh heavy
they drag me down
gold is hard to carry
when the glimmer gets old

how could you take so much from me
while convinced i had nothing to give?
lay me down by the stream now
if nothing else, wont you please let me live?

how did you ****** my head in the water
and still find my lips cracked and dry?
leave me down by the riverbed
if nothing else, wont you please let me die?

you were golden
and filled with fire

exploding with life
you flickered and flared

in my washed out,
moonless night
i was silver and cold

and i found myself drawn
like a moth to a flame
and i thought i would burn.

but when our paths brushed
and i lingered too close
to the sun...

you were warm, you were warm
(and you would never hurt me)

i smothered the flame and i
let it strangulate, slowly
i stifled its breath as its
sparks licked at me
like a shrieking victim kicking
and kicking

but the fire was hushed, always;
i would strangle that
brilliant crimson gold
before it roared, before it even dared.

it didnt matter if i
burnt my hands
down to their britle bones;
the fragile self ive built is paper in the wake
of knee-**** fury

we spent our lives on opposite sides of the same room
we spent our lives on opposite sides of the same coin
we spent our lives on opposite sides of the same war
these days i wish i could cross the threshold
these days i dont want you to die

he was weak, and pathetic
and earnest, and kind
but he was that bleeding, aching, pain in my side
so i took both my hands and choked him to death,
forgetting the shell is as weak as the man

"surely we couldnt"
i think to myself, with you by my side
no. surely we couldnt
and i leave the room
and you dont follow
because you think to yourself:
"surely
we couldnt"

i dont feel a thing and i cant lift a finger

look me in my hollow eyes and tell me, how can i be considered alive?

in the midst of apathy i am nothing more than a dead man,

and in its wake i am merely a ghost

your lips are red
from kissing my hands
like a rose wilting
in reverse
dont you know what ive done?

why do anything if it will fall short of perfection?
i have a reputation, after all
and ive been dragging its corpse with me
for a long long time
the weary old corpse of when the sun still shined
and i had dared to be brighter