The world is quiet now; the fading light
lies soft upon the hills, a gentle glow.
The sea extends beneath the coming night,
each wave a pulse of time in ceaseless flow.

Come stand with me, and hear the waters speak—
No voice of comfort, but a hollow song
of yearning deep, cruel, and forever bleak,
where hope and reason drown in tides too strong.

The clash is clear—our hearts, aflame with dreams,
cry out for meaning on the endless main,
yet nature answers not, and all that seems
secure is lost, like fire in the rain.

But let us not falter at the cold shore,
nor flee to gods or myths to dull the ache,
for though no meaning waits beyond the score,
this life we hold is ours alone to make.

And still the waves press on without regret,
indifferent to the cries that fill the air.
So we must stand unshaken, though beset
by stillness vast and burdens hard to bear.

Though life is fleeting, dark, and void of plan,
there’s beauty still—in love, in thought, in man.

Zeus and Hades Dispute the Soul of Man

Upon Olympus’ storm-crowned throne,
Zeus spoke in thunder, wrathful tone:
“Let me shape them, bold and bright,
With minds like flame and hearts of light.
They’ll build with stone, they’ll climb the skies,
Their dreams as vast as eagles rise.”

From shadowed halls and molten floor,
Rose Hades, Lord of Death and War:
“You give them fire, but I give fate.
Each heartbeat ticks toward my gate.
You build them high, but I make whole.
What good is man without his soul?”

“They are not yours!” the thunder cried,
“They breathe beneath the open sky!
Let them rejoice in song and feast,
Let love and war be theirs at least!”

Hades laughed, in low despair:
“And yet, they whisper me in prayer.
You give them hope, I give them truth
The mirror time holds up to youth.
Their gods may lie, their hearts may roam,
But every man comes crawling home.”

“They shall defy you!” Zeus proclaimed,
“With temples, towers, songs unnamed!
They’ll name me Father, King of Kings,
Their lives uplifted on my wings!”

“But when the wine runs dry,” said he,
“They’ll find their way from gods to me.
Let them rise but not forget
Their roots are born in ash and debt.
For what you raise, I shall receive
The last to hold them as they leave.”

And so the world was born of strife
Between the spark and end of life.
One gave will, the other doom,
And Man walked bravely toward his tomb.

With dreams from Zeus and dusk from shades,
A creature of both light… and grave.

A figure lurks in the shadows,
its gaze fixed on me,
expectant
hungry
lifeless.

As I walk on the narrow path
of life – unaware at first,
I feel its presence
slowing my steps with unseen weight
like stones filling my pockets underwater.
The sun dims when its near,
colours leaching from the world.
I want to run,
but the path narrows,
thins to a tightrope beneath me.

The figure waits
forever patient,
sometimes distant as mountains,
sometimes close as my own shadow.

It grabs the coattails
of my existence,
clawing its way closer
with each heartbeat,
each exhale,
each moment of forgetting.
Until I can feel
its breath
on my neck.

It whispers in the voice I know too well,
murmurs dressed as memory,
lullabies of failure,
groans of what might have been.

I do not turn,
But I know it waits.

A figure lurks in the shadows,
Still, I walk on.
I have places to go
Before it takes me.

If not any others,
We harbor one advantage,
Our mortal human soul.

So go on,
Let your heart keep beating,
Never accept defeat!

Ever since I was a child,
I counted all the ways we could die—
falling through ice, an earthquake,
Even the weather seems to panic.
Somewhere in the world, right now,
A fish is struggling to get by.
But it dies by the hand of a man.
who thinks death is a pastime.
We die small deaths every time—
Like scissors in hair, shedding of skin
when I knew all the ways he would leave
Once, just once in my life,
I want to feel delicate.
Not like the hole in the drywall.
shaped like a fist.
Once, I want to shred the list.
that contains all the ways we could miss
Just once, I do not want to be sharp.
like a cutting knife, like a blade
Even in death, there is rebirth—
flies, mites, beetles,
feeding on someone’s deathbed.
From just one conversation,
I could smell the rot—
the body left untouched for a month,
Is it wrong to say?
That ever since I was a child
I lived with ghosts in my house.
And I was never soft in my life.
just bones and flesh
with a brain filled with living death.

We are lit,

We burn,
We flicker,
We die.