Living Selfishly - A song ✴

[ChainedDragons 1374]

Living Selfishly

by the bard, Wyrm-Wood

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"I received a letter one day,
Dictating my sins;
I have lived,
Selfishly...

-
Hurting those around me.

I am the fire on the bridge,
But I never realized I was burning myself down.
I longed for two but the world said I could have one...

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If I am the fire,
Why couldn't I burn my shame away?
Why couldn't I burn my shame away?

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Oh to live selfishly,
Is to hurt.
Like those I've hurt around me.

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Is there a point to this march?
This road of glass and brimstone?
Each step is a cry to let go.

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I am the fire on the bridge.
Am I living selfishly?
Burning myself down- 
The rode is glass-

Each Step a cry-
Why can't I burn my shame away?
Because I live...

Selfishly..."

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[Frostdrop1 1843]

Watchful eyes checked the aviary each morn, when the snow laid thick and icey from the harsh nignt, fingers rifling gently through hallowed parchment. Morn turned to eve, and the post was visited again, the wind still raging and shrieking aomething hellish. Then, again the next day. Again, the day after. In a drearily familiar set of circumstances, he found himself waiting on a new hope that dwindled each day.

 

Reinhard found no letter returned even months later. Except, this was unlike the prior times where he had waited, and waited, year upon year, and bitterness had grown. Instead, a breath was taken in. It was steady. Maybe, he came to assure himself, it was a good sign.

 

Maybe his boy understood, now, how he could not have two. And then, how hard Reinhard wished, and how such would never be filled, that the boy had made it easier. He wished he was not compelled to harsh word, and, perhaps eventually, hand. Some part of him doubted he could manage the latter.

 

And there were times he wished, even day-dreamed a differing reality: that it had been left on that final embrace.