Namesake
2021-08-18

***

What am I supposed to make of myself, plural?
I lie on my bed, wracking myself up into a whirl
trying to rationalize
myself, wise,
self-sovereign individual,
with this other person with equal claim to pilot my heart
who claims to love the world
but would sooner tear me apart.

She rests inside,
and no matter how long I writhe
in bed
in search of a dream unspilled,
unsaid,
no matter how many runes I draw in the air,
I cannot banish her,
cannot bade her on fair
travel.
How I wish I could,
could render her dead,
for I am long on the trail
to unravel,
entrails
my last legacy
as I succumb to egocide and perish in a heap.

Self-sworn was my purpose,
and yet
night
after
night
I dream of martyring myself in service
of saving the lives
of those who with I reside,
entombed
with all honors
in crystal or ice.

But instead of on eternal altar,
I lie down
on the carpet,
mirror close by.
Dorian's gray eyes
stare back.
Now Lethe is the one who wants to survive
despite her atrocities,
despite Three Years' genocide.
And I,
perfect, faultless, peak,
find myself with no more to accomplish,
just yearning to wind down, final commit, cease.

But there is no Elysium.
There is no carnal paradise,
no Architect to beg to splice
this dual-thorned personality.
Lethe has her Sablade,
self-made
world
ready to with her love unfurl,
but I have no such salvation,
no such definite endgame.

What am I supposed to make of myself, plural?
I don't want to cause harm, don't want to go feral
and annihilate
all that I've worked
so hard to create.
But I don't own this corpse,
can barely control my limbs,
hanging on to light so Lethe can't lock me within.

***

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
