Burdens and Beasts

I am Sisyphus
and I am the boulder.
The weight, the struggle, the endless climb.
Every day, I push the stone uphill,
knowing it will roll back down.
Knowing I will do it again.

And yes
I am the boulder.
The burden. The flaw.
The consequence of my own hands.
This torment is not placed upon me
I built it.
I shaped it.
I made it mine.

I am Prometheus
and I am the eagles.
Torn apart by the world,
ripped open by my own choices.
My flesh, stolen piece by piece,
only to heal, only to lose it again.
And yet
I feast.
I take.
Even knowing the cost.
I devour through anguish.
I destroy through knowing.
Still, the cycle spins.

I am Odin.
gouging out parts of myself for wisdom,
only to find knowledge is not salvation
it is a heavier burden.
I’ve given everything to understand
and still, I suffer.
Still, I bleed.
Still, I fall.
Still, I climb.

I am Icarus
drunk on ambition
so desperate to rise I forget the price of flying.
The sun was never meant to hold me
yet still, I rise.
Still, I burn.
Still, I fall
wax melting down my spine
pretending I didn’t see it coming.

I am Hades
lord of my own underworld
dragging the ghosts of my past
crowned king of wreckage.
I built this kingdom out of pain
named it home
dared anyone to take it from me.

I am Atlas
my back breaking beneath the weight.
The world presses down
daring me to let it fall.
But I don’t.
I hold it.
Because I was told it was mine.

I am Narcissus.
not in love but in desperation,
staring into the reflection.
trying to recognize what’s left
if there’s anything more
than the hollow shape of who I used to be.

I am Orpheus.
turning back when I shouldn’t
letting doubt unravel what I built
watching love slip away
because I could not trust it would stay.

I am Achilles
strong, untouchable
or so I pretend.
But I know where my weakness lives.
I know what will bring me down.
Still, I leave it exposed.

I am creation and destruction
the sword above me
and the choice
to stay
or to take one step forward.

Funny Thing

Love is such a funny thing.

Falling in love, especially.

I wanted it so badly, ever since I was a child.

The way it was painted in stories, the way it was promised,

like a fairy tale, like some sort of salvation.

And how could love not be romanticized?

But love isn’t the problem.

It never was.

It’s the falling.

Because falling is exactly what it is.

A plunge from an airplane with no proof of a parachute.

A descent from a cliff with the harness left unfastened.

A freefall, weightless and helpless, with no promise of landing safely.

It is, in the end, a kind of death.

Always a death.

Whether in the vows of til death do us part or in the slow, quiet undoing before…

one of us will not survive the other.

And me? I am still falling.

I used to think if I fell hard enough,

if I threw myself into it with everything I had,

the landing wouldn’t matter.

That love itself would catch me, hold me, keep me safe.

That devotion was enough to soften the ground.

But love isn’t made of hands,

it isn’t made of safety.

It is an unknown we step into willingly,

mistaking the wind against our skin for flight.

And for a time, it does feel like flying.

But the body can only take so much.

And the fall… it never fucking ends.

There is no warning before the impact,

no mercy in how we break against each other.

It’s not quick.

It’s not clean.

It’s slow.

It’s cruel.

And still, I keep my arms open,

as if I can slow the descent.

As if I can stop what’s coming.

As if love was ever anything more than gravity,

or the ground waiting to swallow me whole.