Learning lessons, expectations, 
Inevitability of your own design. 
I’m left to rot inside 
This tower of my making, stretching to the pale blue sky. 
A place I call home just because it’s the only place left 
Within a whole world gone to ruin 
In the aftermath of spectacular underachieving. 

I fear 
I’m overdone; 
I fear. 
I’ve overstayed 
A welcome I believed had no time limit. 

Faceless friends, taken at face value. 
Taken from my wrathful claws. 
My merit in question. 
Pull me behind you, I dare. 
Tease and cull 
The side character 
In a sordid tale 
Told by the heroes 
Who walked - who cheered - before war was won. 

I fought dragons 
For everyone else  
And I returned to scorched lands. 

I ran, 
Never for the sake of bravery, but for the sake of someone I loved. 
Something made of gold. 
I love, I love, I love 
Until it forgets me. 
Until I become a feather caught in the wind, 
No one left to catch me. 

I found myself shouting into a void, 
Then sprouted wings out of sheer necessity. 

I’d have chased after me, if I were her. 
I’d have waited 
Those precious moments. 

But I believe in the childlike stories 
Everyone else moved on from. 
I whispered in the dirt, hope and other antics; 
The kind of love that gives back. Fights. Stays a while. 

For so long I played a fool holding a dying thing, praying it would take any other shape. 
I nestled into my pillows each night 
Content in the dreams I could conjure.   
I sat lonely at my window, 
Praying long after I was told that no one could hear it. 
Becoming blasphemous enough to worship at a makeshift alter 
Exposed in my most desperate hour. I knew it’d wreck my eternity, 
So I told her I’d never let her go, 
And all I have left is truth. 

The silence that followed was poison in my wine. 
Her chalice sat untouched as I swayed to her steady rhythm. 
I swayed,  
And I forgot, 
And I remembered the emptiness I liked to alter. 
My stories were small. My dreams were simple. 
I still thought them interesting. 

But I held her hand while she held a mirror; 
A maiden in distress masquerading as a well-weathered knight 
Holding me hostage 
So long as I was convenient enough to play pretend with. 

I jumped 
When I no longer served her purpose. 
I jumped 
Because I had to find my new home. 

Dregs of innocent desire dug my grave as I tucked in my wings. 
Vines bound my ankles to earth on impact. 
I tasted dirt again 
And every desire rose to the surface 
As I begged for new life. 
So I transcend solemnity, 
All because I wanted to be real. 
To be permanent. 
To be chosen.