He stands upon the cliff's edge in a tailored coat of charcoal wool,
The collar turned against sea salt gusts that bite with merciless grace,
Beneath him the ocean waves roll,
Roll like siphon of primordial unrest,
The obsidian surface fractured by moonlight into molten shards of silver,
He surveys the eddying tides with composure of a Lord surveying his demesne,
Yet his heart quivers beneath the veneer of aristocratic poise,
Each pulse a tremor echoing through the hollow chambers of his chest,
He feels the tide's inexorable pull,
A clandestine hand coaxing his spirit downwards in void,
As though the sea always remembers every sorrow ever cast upon it's waves.
High above,
The sky hangs heavy with bruised clouds,
A somber tapestry woven in ebony and graphite,
Each stitch a testament to storms long since relinquished,
The wind carries fragments of distant thunder,
And he stands there imagining,
Imagining it muttering his name with an uncanny intimacy.
He recalls salons of polished marble and chandeliered splendour,
Where laughter glittered like crystal and conversation danced on gilded tongues,
Yet here upon the dawn of such,
On this craggy precipice where every cultivated grace betrays him,
He wonders if the ocean shall grant him solace or will it swallow him without mercy,
He lifts a gloved hand to his brow,
Shielding himself from memories too golden,
Yet the wind rends his restraint and fling back his hair in a tangle of midnight threads,
He contemplates the paradox of refinement and ruin,
That one may possess every luxury yet stand stripped,
Bare before elemental fury,
His lineage taught his command,
But never how to govern the tempest within.
He closes his eyes calibrating his breath to the rhythmic roar,
Inhale.
The brine of regret.
Exhale.
The fog of unspoken pleas.
In that moment,
He discerns the ocean's deepest secret,
That it mirrors the human heart,
Magnificent and merciless,
Capable of harbouring both sublime beauty and unfathomable dread.
He opens his crimson gaze to the spray clad horizon,
Where starlight tremble upon the verge of extinction,
He imagines casting his burdens into the abyss,
Letting each sorrow sink into the fathomless floor,
There to be claimed by leviathan of his own despair,
Yet he remains anchored by an invisible tether of resolve,
For even as the sea beckons,
He refuses to dissolve into it's depth,
He recalls a whispered promise once made upon silk laden verandas,
To endure whatever currents life may conjure,
To rise again when the tide receded.
He straightens his shoulders against the gale,
The sharp lines of his silhouette carved against the moonlight swell,
In that posture of defiance,
He discovers a fragile Grace,
The strength to stand upon the precipice of oblivion,
And choose,
Each heartbeat,
A breath anew.
He offers the ocean a silent nod,
An acknowledgement of it's ancient dominion,
Dominion of his own,
For within the cathedral of crushing waves,
He has glimpsed the dual face of existence,
That to suffer is to be alive,
And to endure is the greatest act of nobility,
He turns from brink as dawn tip toes across the ink dark sea,
A slender thread of rose and gold unwinding the night,
His footsteps carry him inland,
Each one an affirmation,
Though his soul may drown a thousand waves in silent seas,
He shall rise forever more,
Tempered by darkness,
Guided by light of the heavens shining above.
~Sapphirus
YOU ARE READING
Thoughts of a Loner.
PoetryPoetry written by yet another individual just existing throughout as any other being like any of you, experiencing life and suffocating thoughts.
