hand-me-down lessons lifted
from leather-bound tomes
in iterations of half-hearted exultation
but i found definition in negation

i am the antichrist

for false hope mingles with
crippling self-doubt and
cerebral self-mutilation leads
inexorably to intellectual suicide

i won't follow the death drive

rejecting fantasies of faith
in order to
overcome the world
my struggle is undertaken

alone

i will not sacrifice
reason science art philosophy
for a paternal phantasmagoria
or pastoral paradise

black sheep weren't born to follow