there is beauty in fractured glass.

beauty like broken hearts,

and seas of tears,

and dreams of the darkest cloth.

they ask for happy endings,

for poems that invoke joy.

they tell me mine are melancholy,

sad,

and soon to be lost one day.

they say i should write for dreamers,

rather than those with nightmares.

they plead for endless gold,

without Midas's touch.

they demand the brilliance of lightning,

but only if i take away the thunder.

there is a beauty is sorrow,

in its endless,

war-set ways.

but only if you know where to look,

between the lines of shattered soul.

i write for the dreamers,

born into lives of living nightmares.

i write for the melancholy,

who will soon be lost one day.

i mix crumbled mountains,

and felled gods,

and empty hearts,

and silver tears,

and falling whispers,

and drowning dreams.

i set my ink in stone,

and force cold eyes awake.

i do not write for those with infinite power;

i write for those with none.

so that they might steal from my words

a stained breath

of ancient air.