by Soyeenka
Watered down sunlight sneaks inside,
Past the dirty, aged glass of the windows, and
Casts a shadow of webs on the floors
Left dirty and neglected.
Amidst it all, staggers a figure unnoticed,
Creaky bones shuddering
With every heaving breath of misery:
A timeless soul haunting a dead castle,
Towards the entrance long-forgotten,
Uneasily harbouring a fruitless sort of hope.
It had been a lifetime, after all—
Of growing faint from yearning,
Of waiting for a hand extended out of faith
To hold on to when the indifferent spring passes by
Callously without a second glance,
Leaving behind only a dismal, crackling stillness.
The leaden absence of life— a presence more tangible
Than the lone one swiftly ghosting up ahead.
This plague had been ever-present,
A fatal longing to be embraced— even if
At the price of a cold knife pressed to the throat,
For even the sublime pleasure
In that deathly kind of intimacy seemed
To have never been in the cards
And nor shall it ever be—
Nothing left to clasp, no fingers to clutch on to
In this winter that would outlast the fabric of time.
It had become a pastime, a way of survival almost—
To find solace in the mournful notes
Played by a strained heart which
Filled the wretched liquid silence that
Engulfed everything Sight could behold—
Basking in the peace and beauty unfolding in the
Quiet contemplation of mortality.
Looking down deep within—
At a barren wasteland of dreams never realised,
And wishes never to be fulfilled,
All shut in forever by the now-rusty iron fortress—
Often brought death to an already withering flower
With a pang in the heart
Of this kingdom of a vast nothingness
With no survivors left.
The steely armour lies discarded by the door,
Battle-scarred and dull and misshapen,
Laying bare every single weakness that
Had never been allowed to see the light of the day—
A jaded body bruised by life.
At long last the crown had been placed on the temple,
But the back bowed under its weight often wondered at times,
How different could have ancient Pyrrhus felt
When all had been said and done?
Wordless proclamations of resignation reverberate
Ominously in a suffocating void.
It had been a lifetime, after all—
Of waiting indefinitely for a thorough desecration,
Everything razed to the ground by Fate and Time,
Of having stood poised since eons to gaze
At the infernal face of Styx at last.
But the silent spiel stood interrupted
As the footsteps of an Other echo for the first time
On the frosty stones of this lone island,
The sound having reached home long before
The wind could take up abandoned posts
To come whisper in the ears of the solitary ruler
About the strange arrival unannounced.
Hurried steps cease for an instant
While dust settles around worn feet,
Heavy doors groan on opening to a lifeless hall
To reveal the visitor who has come to put an end to all;
A dark absolution on swift wings.
