Work Text:
I look into her eyes,
And she understands.
She sees the blood on my hands,
Down my shirt,
Staining my soul.
Gold dust swirls,
Like grey specks ignited by an evening glow.
The red has turned cold.
I feel too much,
And I don’t feel at all,
And my heart is breaking
over and over and over.
Will it ever stop breaking?
I am Atlas;
I hold up the world.
Lives rest in my hands,
And I wonder if this is what Thanatos feels like
When he goes to collect his souls.
They’re precious,
And fragile,
And light as a feather,
And they weigh me down by ropes
tied around my mind and my chest and my heart and my sword.
They fall around me,
The bravest of all,
The children with hope still shining in their eyes.
I believe that when I die,
Thanatos will not be able to pick up my soul,
For it will be slick with blood that is not my own.
I am falling
Deeper than tartarus.
The pits do not scare me;
I have already been there.
Death does not scare me;
I have looked into his eyes.
What scares me is living,
For life gives and gives and can take away just as fast.
I look to tomorrow,
And I look to tomorrow,
But tomorrow never comes,
And I am left with the dredges of the life that I have led.
I am Atlas;
I hold up the world.
The mountains dig into my back,
The seas soak me,
And the sun burns with its proximity.
The rivers run down my face past my eyes,
Giving the impression of tears.
My screams are mistaken
For wails.
Plants grow in my lungs,
Leaving me gasping for air,
And my desperate breaths are mistaken
For silence.
I am not silent.
I am Atlas;
And the world buries me under dirt-smudged grief
And oceans of regret.
If tomorrow is an end,
Then I hope night falls soon.