The demon climbs. A strange dichotomy where conventions whisper devils found in depths. Steady march and sway, ever upward past steaks of fuchsia and coral, lightly animate that sky, a plumed and malformed serpent patterned for the broken, that they might somehow defend advance of time no matter its predilection, that dreary verse, that wistful meter. Was it so long ago, the pitting of happiness now against hope that tomorrow we might not be alone? A shame begging to be gratified, amended by clever minds to become vivid and complex. What must that mean other than the path is chosen at expense of alternative, a frenetic box plastered by harmony fading, the carefully considered replaced by exuberance, turned rack and wheel under chandelier of revenge. Should we become comet or snail, pursuing a life of blazing light, quickly extinguished, or one of plodding determination, seeking to extend our days until vitality fails? Which is our downfall, and which a beginning? Please, let me continue to the end. Do not let all I have given up be for nothing.

Focused effort and benign turns of fortune to reach the sphere sought by many a stalwart champion, those having claimed intelligent plans, each proven wrong by excess of faith. It hangs before me now, close enough to touch, dim and spinning, the hinted blue of dawn at midnight, an unrivaled satellite marking boundary of progress, baleful and noble and without lineage by which to gauge some base composition, no gable or gutter to affirm one's perspective as shared. Are we all framed by the hurricane, shouting and ignored, our strivings justified thereby? Does being scorned make us more than vapor, more than dust? The demon enters the sphere as though through ink, leaving me to witness a pulse extending to scattered bones and ideas and by these a universe made, if only to show there is no finish line, only shining, and pain to show for it. How useless lament in the face of this rubicon, when every gnash of teeth ends at the same narrow gate? Is this my role then, to press steel against a threat too vast to fight? In the sphere’s shadow I feel like moth to a star, so I enter as one would jump into the void, ever forward, ever afraid.

Surrounded by distances and solitude, a pall reflecting capacity to doubt and that leaping from image to image to nerve and not stopping, a drumming of which one knows neither source nor end. My eyes adjust to cathedral of travail and here the demon breathes like ice, searing and cracked, like old plaster on older brick, unyielding to analysis or testimonial of some inevitable understanding. Every draw skips the line between range and swell of authority and each exhale plunges me into an obsidian maw outside the reach of adopted theory and prescriptions of behavior. It is a butcher against whom all victories are temporary, none sufficient to quell the taste for those struck dumb by presumed safety of abstraction, no future however finely crafted is enough to prevent comprehension that the last word will not be my own but a price paid in sacrifice where all freedoms are made short-lived by intention. On what cloud might I pawn adjudication of duty, somehow blanching the power of circumstance, this nemesis? Let it come then, I will strive where others failed. So begins the fight of my life.

The demon flows, immune to mace and sword as they meet sheer nothing. Its hands like knives but I feel no pain, the carnage occurring degrees removed, an interval tacked to every strike and their sum devoid of interest. How I had underestimated this reaper, its perfection. Through feral swipe and dull squeeze I hear the sorcerer, he that underlies every madness and mystery, he says, “Someone once told me that hope makes anything possible. I must disagree. Witness your struggle against drain of life, the respect of those you love eroded by familiarity and distance both. I suppose I am somewhat to blame, though all I did was fix the edge. It was you that chose to walk it.” Another barrage, more ground given if only to escape. What subtlety had I intended to deploy, what gossip traded to slow going cheaply in all dimensions, to seal the border between reality and dream? There are no levels here. No higher. No deeper. No radical foray stoked by inspiration or learning. No evolution waiting or wings granted upon discovery. The demon descends like gravity unhinged, a belief out of phase and shrill through the quiet of exhaustion, its final blow coming like the sound of being completely and forever alone. I favor one side, the other, the demon cares not and crushes me still.

How long must I stay between discordant rift and promise of union, every side attuned to the sincerity of wanting to know, the modest means by which I seek to escape propriety? How to win from brooding ground where attempts are just that, a serious man embattled by strain of achieving perfect discipline without the eternity required to accomplish it. Who to speak for me at this separation from life, at final fling from doom-worn cliff? Who but the demon, my oldest companion, my dearest enemy. It says, “What sport to kill without fear? It is I that awaits at the end of roads, what you beg to avoid but must confront. And I will beat you every time. By wit. By force. By any method I choose. Try. Resist. See how it makes me stronger.” I struggle to my knees but that is all, rendered crippled by a childhood converging with absolutes riding ahead and just out of reach by newer and better approximations, unable to care for the heartsick and defeated, those frozen by function served, frantically digging out from under where the full strangeness of circumstance is immobilized, a last refuge wiped clean by that which stands on the horizon and at one's heels, a devil to whom all are hindmost, the only respite a narrow slice of time and that a destiny of ill-fated turns. The walls appear to melt, grained by end times and faces wounded by the insatiable need to escape, moans buckling these mirrors like some ancient wainscot intensified by the flood of those behind and untold legion to come, the countless of apocalyptic origin and rites of passage failed, a front line beaten into the press by boat-hook and oar, and there chewed over by every adjoining man. A gout of masks, a crenellation of faces, each my own. What I would not give for valediction, to touch her lips once more, to become the one I knew was possible. I turn inward, reflection speaking admission of a truth never said aloud, to myself, to you, to any that might listen, that I am not strong enough.

Quiet room lit by curve of anticipation, events that shed expedience on a thing both familiar and mysterious, entwined and hurtling. She sits astride me, every pretense disarmed by how easily she ravels enchantment of courage and what might come, not presented but plucked here from fragile edge of eternity. What conspired to make this perfect creature, rollicking like a song, a rhythm at entrance of shift and momentum, a voracious and vibrant opening merged to sensations revealed and returned, heat, flying, trauma, need, all of these, and so much more. Mind clear, no thought shining brighter than yes, no, yes . . . in the darkness a fading shimmer of well-being tuned by pattering rain like the counterpart of authentic experience in a space where problems cease, where absence of tension is readily found in this equilibrium unto ourselves. In the delicious and laden silence I wish with all my heart that she wait, that I will realize the antidote to borrowed time, this wholeness beyond escape, a primal cache embodied by capsule of tranquility woven together by whispered cry, her body lifting under mine and I absorbed in the temple that she is, no worship enough to honor this unity, our exquisite transience, our speechless love . . .

What but lament entrenches by recrimination and steel, these weapons bringing illusion to life, this moment never to be repeated made silhouette against river of stone as all directions recede to a flicker glimpsed but rarely, that to focus on the trivial is murder, a killing of our most sacred hours. Beware the narrative and its tyranny, the mind focused on time, convinced that all we say becomes regret, and all we do not shall burn inside. Such is to wash blood with blood without seeing that tears carry the same salt, the same seed of conflict if nurtured so. As the sun burns fog we may be freed to dance in the wind, the graveyard sprint transformed to being in time but not of it, at ease in the only moment it may happen. Now or never. In this my heart and mind are one. Cleansed of urgency. A kite yearning to fly the skies of imagination, of wonder. I have been guarding the door, a spectacle concealed by prescription, responding by obligation and threat assumed. No more. My grip relaxes like the hold of a bygone age, I see through memory, through consequence, and in the only move left I let them go, the din of voices melting into a sea, a drop, a pinprick, gone. The faces that once screamed replaced by stars, countless and silent.

I sit hushed in repose beneath sapphire and isolation, byzantine, indestructible, a midnight tent imposing arcane phosphorescence, dark lanes alive and coiling around renewal of serenity, not the short-lived relief of a body gambled but that which shines through singular query, would I choose this life again? On this the stars are quiet, and no matter how I hew to reason the oceans of emotion rage on, our common bond in simple words: be not afraid. A message with heritage in younger seasons, chapter and verse and episodes displaced, polarity seen through delicate turns of phrase. It is here the sorcerer is broken, revealed under stars like symbols of stars, five-pointed and paneling a sky hot and infinite as though simmering remainder of all that is left. He tells me of ambition perfect as the mind’s eye can create, that the world is full and no appointments are required for waiting rooms beyond, that he had a vision to stop time but can no longer fathom my dream as I dare to empty the ocean with a spoon. For this I am sorry, for having waited so long to realize that days are lifetimes, and for those in anguish, longer still. Never did I imagine the cost of fear, a wound that grew with every lie. Even so, this apology is without fault. Life is too complex for blame, and too simple. In those eyes, bright with tears, I see what has not healed, that he too does not want to die, and so I fold him in an embrace forged by the struggle to move mountains. Though we are all connected by cruelty, by expectations and will, we must befriend the mirror, only then can we love each other. I hear a cry of deliverance and bliss, and then he is gone, disappeared like the mist that once haunted me so.

A ladder materializes like some mercurial composite descended to allow my wandering continue, a following brought upon by resonance, the imminence of non-being. I climb through murk and hinterland where birds absorb all compassion in flights of well-worn ellipses, tasting the firmament, their correlates a shimmering niagara, one to each yet not forever as they grow apart across space and time to turn roughest touch into more poetry yet, assimilated and forgotten but woven into legacy nonetheless as a thing occurred can never be undone, atoned for but never changed. In that sky is elongate script put there by hand neither flesh nor attached to glorious movements of these dark and speckled oceans. From my lips to heaven’s door, I read aloud, “The stars coalesce in you, how is that not a miracle? Why act small as you breathe the constellations that fuel your steps, as they churn a surf of possibility, these waves given you in plenty?” A gate appears, a transom slide, a frame of sentiment deemed to radiate welcome with or without my understanding, my presence a damaged wing ready to consume premonition or salience of morality, lionized this road, leading to water by state of abstraction and capacity to err. I could decorate these thoughts with celebration and in retrospect, but what is left aside from agency without evidence, surreptitious and constant in its claims? It could be that nothing is cured through conquest, yet that still leaves the work of letting go, a symbiotic constituent to daring greatly, indifferent to anything other than most tenuous of allegations—that the child is father to the man. If she might be on the other side, if I might love again, then the choice is really no choice at all.

I step through into riot of color replaced by loneliness heralded in vacuum like the sound drained of a room. In that bright and geometric terminus is calamity, the negator, a dragon stitched from words that have long run circles in my mind. It says, “You breathe the very black holes and nebula but do not own the fact. Yet when brought to your limit, the backdrop stands revealed. Listen to the whisper that obscures the bond between brother and sister, where identity is born as you take the world at its face. The only death is that of illusion. Awakening is not to change this but to see the same beauty in fresh blooms and dying friends. The faster you chase your shadow, the quicker it flees. All will take its course, and God is but a word. See your prison, find that which cannot be given by symbol or sound, just as a window does not give the field or ocean outside. Stars are born. They also die. You are made of stars and more. Remember infinity, and be free.”

The spectrum becomes alley, shading funneled and erased. Can ideals shoulder responsibility, do I dare not test the waters? What if the temporal can be reconciled, has it not been said that nothing lasts yet nothing is lost? Might I be destined for continuity yet bound in state across gradient dimensions known by no other name than the source itself? How this consolation beckons, to leap through gulf and limit and see if I might be born again. Skilled serpent, wrapped about the one caught in contradiction, is this the way back, or further into night? How to choose between family and friend, lover and child, enmity and wisdom? Oh, this surface of my attitudes, this bondage to proclivity. My growing doubt hides a secret, a radiance covered from even the most discerning eye. I cannot see why the trivial is celebrated so. Is everyone I love more advanced, or more scared than I? Is the kernel of their deepest being obscured, this same thing I now strive to keep within reach? Should I reveal my compass, point to it relentlessly, or is that a disservice, the attacked become attacker? How has it come to this again?

Soft wash of streetlights reduced to vanishing, strobes and shadows at rest on these walls, this quiet place. She is purity, a tender passion, an opalescent sheen arising from kindness and creativity on fire, equal to the sun, unmoved by force or testimony, a living miracle. Tears well, so full am I of frailty, of goodbyes to come. Her breathing is slow, steady, as if to say all I fear can only be dealt with as it comes. How can any farewell be final if it is only time that stands between us? And death, might it not be beautiful? What if it sees our love made to stretch forever, without illness or lack, misfortune or pain? We must not hedge against the certainty of passing when there is no evidence of destination or state. I forgive myself in our embrace, the ghost and cage dropping away, and while scared to open these wings it is more frightening not to. Such is the beauty of possibility, of freedom and rightness found in all we make together. Death may be our master, but I will not be its slave. I will find the courage to see the gift in every step. For you, for us, now, always.

I set out to end it but found only smoke, an empty seat, vacant ideas. No one is there, and no one is coming. I strove for certainty, some respite from the potential of each new moment, the evil and goodness lying in wait. With all doors open how can one claim joy is their right? What assurance the past is not doomed to repeat, or pledge can be made that it will? The best guesses are lies, and all is granted but promises. Be not afraid. See the secret history of our enemies is the same as our own. If we are to fear it must not be of fate but of not doing right. The fork emerges from paradox, if limitations are not given but accepted at what point may we sacrifice our choice, to let that greatest of responsibilities go? We flow from this, to be led by those claiming to carry our burden costs us everything, the battle lost in that moment, all that moves our spirit brought to heel. Yet, the freedom to choose comes quickly. We need only a single breath before redemption, and in that space can name our purpose and dreams, we can begin again. I refuse to die and meet the one I could have been. No, I welcome life in the shadow of a dying star, striving to be the example that none need persuade of their importance. We will lose it all, some in a blink, and the rest slowly, painfully. I will not deny this through story or ignorance, obsession or distraction, neither will I begrudge these as I too am guilty, having come to know through my own acts they are but final defense, a desperate response to the suffering at every turn. Your pain is mine, your unease. I have also gazed long into the abyss, but when it looked back, I winked, having seen that you and I stand together at the edge. Take my hand and know that everything will not be all right, each of us will end, but it does not matter because we have each other. Words beyond this risk gilding a lily too precious, so I close my eyes and ask, do I want to die? No, but I will, with love in my heart. Until then I choose to live, to say yes, forever yes, to light the world.