He stood beneath a sky of dim, aristocratic pallor,
Where even the heavens seemed to have withdrawn into a dignified melancholy,
And there,
Upon the cuff of his darkened sleeve,
The first particle of snow arrived, unannounced, immaculate, almost insolent in its purity.
"And what are you," He inquired,
With that measured languor
Of a man long acquainted with disappointment,
"That you dare descend so uncorrupted into a world so expertly decayed?"
"I am but the prelude,"
It answered, voiceless yet unmistakable,
"The quiet envoy of winter's dominion."
He regarded it with a faint, almost scholarly disdain,
As one might observe a naïve philosopher untested by ruin.
"Then you are fortunate," He replied,
"For you have not yet acquired the burden of continuity,"
"That most grotesque affliction wherein one must persist,"
"Despite having fully comprehended the futility of doing so."
The snow lingered, fragile yet unyielding.
"And you, Sire,"
"Why do you wear such exquisite despair,"
"As though it were a tailored garment?"
He exhaled, slow, deliberate,
A man rehearsing the language of his own affliction.
"Because," He said,
"My mind is not a sanctuary but a tribunal,"
"And every thought that dares arise is interrogated,"
"Stripped of its illusions, and left to perish beneath its own scrutiny,"
"I do not feel, I dissect,"
"I do not suffer, I comprehend too deeply."
More snow began its silent congregation,
Each fragment a pale apostle of stillness.
"Winter," He continued,
His voice acquiring an almost reverent austerity,
"Is the only season that does not insult me with false promises,"
"It arrives not as a seducer but as a sovereign,"
"Declaring, with crystalline honesty, that warmth is transient,"
"And that all beauty must eventually learn the discipline of decay."
"And does that comfort you?"
The snow inquired.
"Immensely," He murmured,
"For in its desolation, I find a kinship most rare,"
"A world stripped of its pretensions,"
"Reduced to essence, to bone, to silence."
The particle trembled, dissolving at the edge of his warmth.
"Then I shall vanish," it said,
"As all things must."
He observed its quiet demise with an unsettling composure.
"Yes,"
He replied, almost tenderly,
"But unlike you, I am condemned to remain,"
"Not as purity, but as the perpetual aftermath of my own understanding."
- 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.
