Regret

"Your soul is often times a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgement wage war against your passion and your appetite. Would that I could be a peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody. But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements? " 

-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

The storm rages within. The vessel of my soul is crushed by impending doubt. The sea drowns every flame of life with a cascading, frigid, fear. The sails have remained intact, but the rudder is lost deep beneath the surface. 

Hope is lost. It was a fools journey to begin with, to attempt to be the first, to revolutionize common thought. To explore uncharted territories only to proclaim that it was for nothing after all. The sacrifice. The sacrifice is only remembered in scars. Scars deep and searing with the regret of a conscious ill-fed with a fluttering dream. Desire and impulse have betrayed my good faith once more. How can one believe, when belief is the constant between failure and oneself? 

The darkness is suffocating. My body shivers and my hands shake. I try to clench a fist in protest, but fear holds my hand open like an old friend I wish to never have met. The world falls into itself as the bow splinters. The crew's voices fade as the sea reaches from it's depths and pulls them under. 

I close my eyes. 

Effortlessly you stand, smiling, laughing. The pure bliss we once knew together, I now only long for from a photo afar. The moonlit sky and cigarette smoke illuminate your weary faces like the Gods we worshipped, a memory that is distant and faded just the same.

I keep them shut. 

I am but the flick of flame. I burned bright in your eyes for an instant, but just like I came, you put me out.

And I keep them shut. 

We were invincible, inspired. Recklessly motivated by a world we so gratefully no longer felt apart of. 

And I keep them shut.

I am jealous, spiteful. Forever damned by the irrevocable action of abandonment.

They open with one last breath.

I close my eyes.