“A life was written with stones & flames, I wore the crown, I bore the name
But words lie & kingdoms bend & stories rarely stay the same till the end”
The clock strikes twelve.
Another year lands heavily on me, like the ill-fitted armor I’ve been wearing for so long until it became one with my body.
It slows me, reshapes me, presses itself into my skin until I forget where it ends and where I begin.
The stones whisper the same words as always: Another year & still you remain.
My birthday,
A reminder I never needed of how long I have stood within these walls, how many gates I’ve opened halfway, only to turn back & seal again with shaking hands.
Each year I practice leaving as if leaving needs rehearsal, I walk the line with the keys heavy at my chest acting as a reminder that the locks have always been mine, that escape has always been possible but never chosen, I unfasten the locks, open the gates & step onto the bridge.
Halfway across, I pause, always halfwayjust enough to feel the cold air, just enough to remember there’s something outside of this.
The sky bows differently to those who live at such heights, the stars hang closer as though to bear witness to my hesitation, I let the wind press its hand against my back, urging me forward & for a moment, I almost believe I can do it, that I can leave.
But belief is fragile, it breaks under the slightest weight, the citadel whispers to me: You built us, You crowned yourself, do not abandon your throne & I listen because it is true, without this place, who am I? Without my masterpiece, what remains of me ?
And so, as always, I turn back
No king nor god could design what I have made, my one true inheritance, my throne, not crafted in a single day but risen stone by stone from each rejection, each fear, each careful act of survival that hardened into another layer of brick, from every time I choked on my words, every door that refused to open became another tower and so to step outside would be to abandon the most brilliant & cruelest work of art I have ever made.
Here I reign & all bends to me.
The gardens bloom at my touch, roses with deep violet & silver petals that carry poisons that I only could endure, the rivers here do not run with water but memories, choices that i chose to keep, wolves with eyes bright as stars, serpents coiled around the walls & birds of feathers made of glass.
Even the stone remembers my blood, halls echo with the rhythm of my steps, every corridor hums with the pulse of its maker, I’ve filled the silence with rituals to soften the nights, dances to keep me from breaking, prayers to bargain, but the sky did not shift, the gods did not answer, the storm never broke & the waiting never ends.
The cruelest part is the hope, hope that each morning the storm will break, that each night mercy will descend
And I’m dreaming of Icarus again, always with his feathers burning, wax dripping,
“I died to rise” mocking me with a mouth filled with water
“You live to dim”
oh god, how I envy his kind of ending, fast, certain, but mine has been slower, a drowning stretched across years, but protection has a price, walls that shield also imprison.
My birthday is here & will pass, another stone, another wall.
And I simply turned back from the bridge knowing the citadel would cradle me as it always has.
The walls do not comfort they claim & so I remain to let the stones finish its masterpiece, through me, upon me, around me.
