Not a world dominated;
a world healed. A world satiated
of blood-lust, and pain, and the ever-expanding
erosion of trust.
We, together,
are what we need. Not just a better
social compact, but a recognition that the dead
are dead, and honoured, and left behind in their agonies. Their red
hills, and decadent, devastated valleys.
We can be something
different. Not necessarily better;
I might be the Fifth Dragon, but
I still cannot make any kind of promises about the weather.
This is still, and never will be
any kind of world for strong men.
This is still, and always will be
every kind of world for everyone left
to their own individuating devices,
and to their own mesmerising ways of defeating crisis.
I am a harbinger, but I am no saviour;
I am a writer, and a poet, and a playwright, and someone who’s life is
fated in the worst possible way
to be a signal fire for all of us. Life is
Life is Life,
my dearest, most beautiful reader.
I may not know you, or I might:
it doesn’t matter.
You and I
together—
this is our fight.
I crossed paths with you in this poem or earlier
because it is not my might
that you needed to comprehend:
it is my love for all humanity
that comes from my love for myself
which is what elevates, and ends
this cycle of ice, and fire, and self-loathing, and death.
Stand tall, you who read these words,
and take strength
from my ‘weakness’:
it takes true, unbreakable courage to share.