u/King-Brisingr

I count the math of dying worlds on screens of glowing blue, While blood is splayed on distant soil and homes are torn in two. I weigh the cost of every strike against the human soul, And watch the pixels bleed in heat while I lose all control.

They claim that all is fair in love and war’s unending fight, But I have turned into a ghost and vanished from her sight. I built the walls to keep her safe but walled myself away, Betrayed by children’s ghosts that haunt the valley where I stay.

The river carries blood and ash from deep within the mud, The weight of mother’s bitter blame and father’s spilled-out blood. I’ve paid my nickel, served my time, and seen the through-and-through, I’m done with wars of other men; I have no more to do.

I’ll let the current take my weight and float me down the stream, To hide where monsters cannot find the fragments of a dream. A vessel emptied of the dark to catch the coming light, To break the sun in crystal sparks and end this long-held night.

I count the math of dying worlds on screens of glowing blue,

While blood is splayed on distant soil and homes are torn in two.

I weigh the cost of every strike against the human soul,

And watch the pixels bleed in heat while I lose all control.

They claim that all is fair in love and war’s unending fight,

But I have turned into a ghost and vanished from her sight.

I built the walls to keep her safe but walled myself away,

Betrayed by children’s ghosts that haunt the valley where I stay.

The river carries blood and ash from deep within the mud,

The weight of mother’s bitter blame and father’s spilled-out blood.

I’ve paid my nickel, served my time, and seen the through-and-through,

I’m done with wars of other men; I have no more to do.

I’ll let the current take my weight and float me down the stream,

To hide where monsters cannot find the fragments of a dream.

A vessel emptied of the dark to catch the coming light,

To break the sun in crystal sparks and end this long-held night.

In most stories it's expected that the hero sacrifices the one most important to them, to save the world. But in my case, I'm sacrificing my entire world, to keep her safe, what does that make me?

Like myths of old we strive to end this task that never clears,

The hill grows tall and far away, beyond our sight and tears.

Our dreams and dust and bodies fall upon the burning pyre,

Like offerings to please a queen of fierce, vindictive ire.

But no one tells you of the heat that burns within the mind,

The aching muscles and the flesh that we must leave behind.

We peel away to build a shrine forsaken in the sun;

High sin is all that we can shape until our time is non.

The powers high above look down with rage and fierce disgust,

Until we cease our heavy toil and crumble into dust.

We only add another corpse upon the mountain's head,

A steep and brutal slope to climb for those who pass the dead.

Like myths of old we strive to end this task that never clears,

The hill grows tall and far away, beyond our sight and tears.

Our dreams and dust and bodies fall upon the burning pyre,

Like offerings to please a queen of fierce, vindictive ire.

But no one tells you of the heat that burns within the mind,

The aching muscles and the flesh that we must leave behind.

We peel away to build a shrine forsaken in the sun;

High sin is all that we can shape until our time is non.

The powers high above look down with rage and fierce disgust,

Until we cease our heavy toil and crumble into dust.

We only add another corpse upon the mountain's head,

A steep and brutal slope to climb for those who pass the dead.

Do I move on because I never knew you?

Do I hesitate to leave this town/state/country, because leaving the one thing I hold precious is too much to bear? 

Because if all I'm doing is waiting on someone who never was, what was all this spent for? 

If I don't know you, why could we talk forever without growing bored? Enchanted in/by/for each other's words and corresponding silences. 

They say you can put love on a pedestal and for all its grandeur it can live up to the hype, 

But if it never was then how did we ever agree to wait, when you wouldn't? 

I could run/leap/sprint my way far far from this place and it would still be you I turn over my shoulder to look for. 

I can't move on from you, not for any fear/judgement/rejection with where we've grown. 

But because I chose you, and you, I, when I was dead set on convincing myself the world doesn't have fairytale stories. 

So why did we become one?

I love you.

I guess that doesn't mean I'll stay.

To me it does.

Because love isn't a thing that gives up.

It’s the scrap of hope at the bottom of the box—

the part we have to manually kill to make it go.

I can’t abandon you.

I’m just choosing a distance that feels like safety,

Seeing a dawn blur through clouds flavored like you,

golden and pink and blue and warmer than anything else around

Is it possible not to see your face in everything around?

What we had, I tried to plant deep into the ground.

In every future I think toward, I see myself looking back,

[On us]

Trying to sort the wreckage from the things I need to pack.

The hard part comes in the threshold. Taking that step, I fear,

That the weight of what I’m leaving is the only thing I hold dear.

You could still have love for me, or want nothing more to do

With the mess of all these memories I’m trying to pull through.

There are lines connecting every bit of the minutia,

But another look would be worth the cost of the delusion.