I stand on the edge of a fallen kingdom. From a cliffside, I gaze over the burning horizon as the sun drowns beneath the edge of the world. I watch as stars shoot across the sky as if being shot out of a canon through the eternal void of space. I watch as everything i’ve ever loved is is destroyed. I witness the demise of this kingdom i worked so hard to build. I experience such a crisis not as a witness, not as an instigator, not as a bystander… but as a shepherd. The voices that rattle within my brain are not an illness, not a burden, not a task… they are nothing but my herd of sheep. I trusted not a fallacy, not a weapon, not an allegiance… i trusted a wolf. I entrusted a wolf with this herd of sheep that i’ve catered to for many years, but i was mislead.

I trusted a wolf as a guardian, only to find it killing my herd day by day. Only to find my herd, had risen from thy grave stronger, convincing and in greater numbers. I trembled before the falling star as the realization had hit me. I’m no longer a shepherd. As my sheep had changed, so had i. I looked more closely at this world in which my kingdom take place in. streets puddled with blood, a civilization so indigenous to violence and anger, a population in turmoil due to a sadness stronger than gravity itself.

I’ve lived day by day while my society has acted as a ticking time bomb to destroy the very foundation it is built upon. As i watch the entire world burn in front of me, my eyes led me to a new perspective of perception. I am no longer a shepherd. For i am the sheep being led by a leopard. I fall to my knees as this trifle hits me like a flying caliber. Tears tinted the pink of the drowning sun slither over my cheek. I look down to my hands to see my palms covered in the filth lost innocence and remorse. I look to the rainbow of shooting stars through the sheet of depression glazed over my eyes.

As i now sit on the edge of this new hell, lost, heartless and reckless, staring at the void riddled with unexplainable colors and stars that burn brighter than the biggest itself, i reach the end of my journey through this treacherous path we call life. I look through the past as if it were a picture book, and flip through the pages. Only to discover i have embarked on a new journey, on the path of despair. Lonely and heartless as this path may be, i decided to write it into the next page of my picture book. I rose from my knees as i finished revising my piece, and stood once again.

I now stand on the edge of a fallen kingdom. My fallen kingdom. From a cliffside, I gaze over the burning horizon as the sun drowns beneath the edge of the world. I watch as stars shoot across the sky as if being shot out of a canon through the eternal void of space. I watch as everything i’ve ever loved is is destroyed. I witness the demise of this kingdom i worked so hard to build. And i realize there’s nothing to stop the inevitable. I am in eternal blazes as i drown in the river of Cocytus. The river that now runs through the streets of my fallen kingdom.

With these new detriments added to my kingdom and bastion, i watch. A voice emerges from the deafening silence. Speaking in tongues, i couldn’t understand what it was trying to say. Until i heard it, the key to a new kingdom. I witnessed with my ears the dark and slender tone of torment. I witnessed with my ears the key to this new found eden. I heard it.

Anima vestra. I slowly rose to my feet on the edge. I closed my eyes and filled my lungs with the thin, brisk, frigid air that surrounded me. I listen carefully to the burning embers of my bastion accompanied by the heart trembling roar of the ground cracking beneath me.

I open my eyes to soak i the destruction and embrace this new found energy that consumes who i am. I look down at the ground beneath my feet to see the cracking stop. A puddle of blood had emerged from the crack that circles my platform. I see my reflection, now enhanced with eyes whiter the dream beyond the clouds. I look at my hands to find my wrists have been inscribed with ink.

On the left wrist, i bare the word wolf. On my right, im inscribed with the word sheep. I turn my hands over to see my fingers shared the same fate. On my left hand the word pain is strewn across the middles of my four fingers. On the right, my fingers spell the word gone.

I clench my hands into fists, close my eyes and take another deadly breath to fulfill my realization.

For i stand on the edge of a new kingdom.