A human embodiment of pain

and dark spaces, he came to

them from a fabled land one day.

He was an expertly wrapped gift of

subtle lessons taught by torn pride and

harsh blows, smoke-filled veins provoking

no thought from an ancient mind.

They knew him by many titles: a menace

a messenger, a demon a God. They saw his

frozen heart in its beatless chamber, its specks

of gold hidden in its black chasms.

They saw the lust in his every breath, the calm

distrust in the shift of his gaze.

Yet his insides would never be truly known.

A sweet soul obscured by a thousand lies,

a kindness sucked away by the jovial

mockery of a thousand eyes, the dark prince

was born to falter into nothingness.

He was the property of the Earth and all its

inadequacies, the Earth and all its impurities,

and, despite their hallowed love of him,

from this

he could not

be saved.