Everything and Nothing

Heroes

I remember everyone I've ever killed

Stilled, though I cannot recall their names

Only the frames in which their portraits

Will forever remain, only partially complete.

I repeat, only their eyes, infinitely vacant

Impossibly hued and unblinking with hate.

I have wrestled with fate and tangoed with time

I have deliberately subdued the sublime

For one second more by myself

In this hollowing hell, on this harrowing shelf

A precipice supporting each side

Perhaps explaining this free-fall.

As momentum builds, the abyss approaches

And I find that motives encroach on my mind

Did I do what I did for the sake of a bid

Cast in earnest, in prosperity's wake?

Or in some vague attempt, 'neath the scorn and contempt

To act on behalf of a greater mystery's stake

In the movements and stalemates of life?

It seems all I've achieved, is the wind through the leaves

An ambiguous striving for strife.

Every face that I pass as sharp as the grass

Pointed and staring, forever comparing

My virtues with those they would own

They find me a pawn in the game of my making

Breaking vows I never knew I was taking

Each alternating between terror and awe

I hear sirens' call, their song ringing death in my ears

I'm the source of their fears, and of my own.

If I fail, they will die, but if I don't, so will I

In every way that matters

Until only tatters remain.