2024-01-04

poetry/w/watershed.txt

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+watershed
+2020-01-01
+
+***
+
+before, in your grief, you proclaim
+"I have yearned for all, and yet the world stays the same"
+just remember how you swore off eternal fame
+
+dear Coleridge, insistent that the crowds were in the wrong
+for not cherishing the pains he put into every song
+"damn it all!" he said, and turned his back to the throng
+
+but in the throes of midnight, you turn your eyes to the sky
+to cotton ball clouds you imagine the stars hide behind
+fervent prayers to Nyx between fatigue-laced sighs
+
+petition to pass into the world of the beyond
+very little with which you care to abscond
+"I've ascended the mountain; I've claimed the crown;
+now grant me sweet rest and let my fire burn down."
+
+the world shifts, and you find yourself prostrate to the throne
+of the goddess of flowers you can't claim as your own
+and in her hands is a circle, a mirror of glass
+like the one which shattered and brought with it lovers past
+
+and like the one who told you to say wolf
+her rough hands lift it so you can behold
+a forehead laced with pearly crocheted veil of sweat
+bogged down with weight of memory, pain of regret
+
+horrified, you recoil from the mirror and cry
+"oh gods, spare me the horrors of the mind!"
+so mindless you wander: retarded you find
+that the rest of the world has left you behind
+
+now, granted, this is but mere parable
+far from fitting fate for one so gentle
+but Saint Sakura stares at the family altar
+and wonders what day everything started to falter
+
+a mind languishing in the gentlest of hells to behold
+an intellectual wasteland where minds go to fold
+like a house of cards, once great empire crashing in
+and leaving oneself trembling in fear of uncertain sin
+
+dear child, please know that you're far from a flop
+but your course is charted; you've come too far to stop
+greatness now tangible, taken shape and form
+your choice: to snatch it, or shrink back and mourn?
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander