When I was young

I sold my soul to the devil.

I asked to become an Atlas.

Now I wait...         wondering
Did the clandestine transaction work?
Or has all my suffering been in vain?
Have I managed to reduce the pain?
Should I have repent first?
I was filled with hate... blundering

and filled with passion.

Now in sorrow I must revel

Left to question what I have done.

how do you walk across the universe?
as if you're not carrying the weight of the world
across your shoulders.

how do you move through the stars?
as if you're not weighed down
by the iron shackles binding your feet.

The medication isn’t working.  I’ve tried to explain to the concerned faces, but the weight has worn me to silence.  I tried my best to give the Prozac a shot, but it was like tying a helium balloon to the top of a boulder; the effort makes for a pretty sentiment, but the burden remains unmoved.
The heaviness makes my brain move slowly, my smiles infrequent, turns my words into mumbles.  I try to think about when this all started, to reach through the fuzz of time past and memories lost.  The concerned faces encourage me to look back and find the ‘why’, to find the big bang of the world that I carry upon my shoulders.  
I remember flashes and feelings, times where things felt normal, where the apples were shiny and red, crunching between my teeth.  There was a time when I trusted the less-concerned-at-the-time faces to help me carry the weight, which used to be far less heavy, the balloon rather than the boulder.  However, no matter how hard I try, I cannot pinpoint the precise time when the heaviness became solely my own.
The medication isn’t working, but there is some part of me that keeps searching for that Heracles drug that’s going to build my pillars again, that’s finally going to help me stand up straight.  Maybe it’s hope, maybe it’s actually the Prozac, afterall - hell, maybe it’s just naivety - but I’m going to keep trying, and for now, that has to be enough.

The burden that breaks this back
is the weight of letting you down,
having lost your way,
having seen you drown.

You were the bright sky turned cloudy,
as I took shelter from your rain.
Your tears had filled oceans
and I cowered from your pain.

Now my heart hangs as heavy
as the world upon my shoulders.
Punishment fitting for the one
who stole, held, and broke hers.

When I die
I hope my passing disturbs
the universe so much
that even Atlas's knees quiver

I am not Atlas.
I can’t carry the weight the world on my back,
Watching from below as
symphonies become sorrows
And hopes become hopeless.
As hearts stop beating despite the flowing
Of blood through the veins along scarred wrists.
And bones fracture after words stab into
Discarded bodies with lifeless heads.
And maybe Atlas didn’t have this problem.
Maybe Atlas could bend his knees,
Perhaps they were sculpted to shift that way
But, even if I wished upon the brightest star
My knees would not bend at the hands of chaos.

with the weight of the world on my shoulders,
hands scrabbling at my back,
i wonder when i stopped being icarus
and took on the role of atlas
and if it was foolish of me to wear wings of wax
and expect them not to melt

i miss that flying freedom.
feeling on top of the world, soaring through a blue sky
with you, my apollo, a guiding light;
an enveloping warmth,
it felt like nothing could touch me
even on the coldest nights

i knew enough of science and mythology
to know i'd fall hard,
that candles drip and melt
and when they melt, your skin burns;
i knew that looking into the sun
would surely make me blind

it didn't feel like such a hazard at the time
i've never had 20:20 eyesight.
the blindest man is the one that refuses to see
and why see when i could feel?
throw caution to the wind, take flight...
i flew and i fell and i loved so i drowned