Modern Romanticism

To him, all that has manifested in this aftermath might be said to be all he expected. All that destruction of a form, all because he took a different direction. Had he lied to himself at that second? All he wanted was relief. A different place to put his sanity. To whatever was left of it, he retrieved it from wherever it dwelled, to place upon a spot that looked cleanest.

That spot, looking cleanest, is now being viewed by him to have instantly become the dirtiest out of anywhere else he’s stamped his vision. Retreat had been his focus, though cowardice was not his motive. Only in regret is this spot where he took his sanity looking at all like it’s been soiled. In regret, he feels feeble, like a child who stares at their parent as if all lessons that had been taught were forgotten in an instant. Immediate shame, as if nothing mattered more in that second, while now everything is realized in the next.

Can he go back? He cannot, for his arms are tired and like someone who chose to row to the other side a lake, expending energy for the purpose of going backwards means that one did not think of this before their arrival. Exhaustion is expressed in his remorse, as this remorse gets expressed further when he attempts to, under subtle aversion, lean his head towards a shoulder chosen at random. His head quivers, his lips purse themselves in evident tension, and he knows before he ever looks back that going back is a lost cause.

His direction is forward. A form was destroyed from his neglect, while remorse stays, for its uncertain lifespan, as a parasite clinging to his spent heart. He walks, lifting his dragging shoulders upon spontaneous and sporadic moments when strength is brought back to him.

His footsteps are traced in the falling snow. Winter will overtake those tracks, bringing them back into blankness. Like white-out on words given regret for their written state, this will be represented as his desire to forget. A temporary period where pangs are sent up from his gut into the back of his throat. To pangs that like weights, somehow also being weightless, take action in floating to where he feels them most. He swallows back down that which cannot be changed.

From destruction to another realm where life sways forth a hand of invitation. He comes to it, bleeding from the back, while he’s illuminated in the front. A future holds out roses for his hands to grasp at their stems, though thorns are to pierce his palms. He’ll weep until he can no longer feel the prior reason to. He’ll drain his mind, among exhaustion’s toil, until he’s lost track of why he ever wanted to in the first place. Brought up to a different frame where he, as another painting’s colors, can be spilled, he might find heaven; or he’ll find out that heaven was hell all along.