Light

The room was cold and empty
And dark with nothing but a screen
Lighting up the shell of a person
So certain in his self-conviction.

He cooled down and his throat dried.
And his breathing slowed as his fingers
Froze. Unable to move.
And he turned his eyeballs inside his head.
And saw nothing.

Nothing that could inspire
Such wonder-filled
words.

Despite his greatest hiding of the truth
Some light shown through.
Through the cracks it shone
And in the darkest corners.
It shone. That despite everything,
She was willing to say that he was wrong.

She was willing to serve as the exception
In a pefectly constructed system of artifice
Designed to deceive even himself.

No, the poet was not dead.
He was suffocating.

The once optimistic hero
Ruined by reality never died.

They were trapped
By his choice.
By the barriers constructed by
A man trying to escape pain.
By choices made in mad, animalistic
Fear. Isolating himself from himself.

And so the poet told him to write.
And the optimist slowly stirred.
As the tears welled up in his eyes,
He realized this was inspired... by her.