(...) ha! what is hope? a butterfly in a box

of demons, and nothing escapes the dark

untainted, a mockery of politics and greed

stamped with treason and dipped in

myths and force-fed brainwashing

going off after a time for the grand

massacre of faith, humanity,

and still we search, scorched feet

for life but find only fake plastic trees

satirical, ludicrous, and ironic

As melancholia replaced the jarring of my invention, I sat.

Unable to breathe in the smog I had created, unable to stand on my betraying legs, unable to howl at the heavens over my sordid soul.

In this inferno, I became paroxysmic, my self-hatred, superparamount, numbness dulling the agony of such a devilish act,

An iron curtain fell upon the surrounding world, or at least what I had left of it to be owned by the laconic eclipse.

All the angels fled, disowning my prayers, the lurid world backed away, leaving me forsaken and detached,

I could no longer hear the bombings, hear them fall, my own fabrication, only the dead air that came after, the intense silence.

Cynical and paralyzed, I realized I had purloined a portion of Hell and given it to the unwilling Earth,

Punishing those I had no right to punish, judging those I had no reason to condemn, destroying cities I had never set foot in.

This is how I became Death, the destroyer of Worlds.

Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.

That would be the death of anyone - to recognize false hopes with a certainty. One mustn't know that. If it is offered, refuse!

False hope is a terrible thing, if its the only thing keeping you alive you'll be dead by dawn.

His room was a sickly dual-tone of crimson and charcoal, like an Untitled Rothko, the colours bleeding into each other horribly and then rather serenely. The overall effect was overwhelmingly unapologetic but it grew on you like a wart on your nose you didn't realise it was a part of your identity until one day it simply was. His room was his identity. Fiercely bold, avant-garde but never monotonous. He was red, he was black, he was bored, and he was fire. At least to me he seemed like fire. A tornado of fire that burned all in its wake leaving only the wretched brightness of annihilation. His room was where he charmed and disarmed us. We were his playthings. Nobody plays with fire and leaves unscarred. The fire soon seeps into chard and soot. The colours of his soul, his aura, and probably his heart if he didn't stop smoking.