No Child of Man Could Follow

Wanderlust in my heart

Restless blood- fiery veins

As grim ghosts of my past came haunting

Seething with doubt

I could sparse hold my ground

Searching for signs when a raven struck down

Judging my soul with an ice cold stare

Ages of wisdom

Ageless black eyes

A soul laid bare before those pits

Bereft of want and fancy

Of aspirations made by man

Fool's gold- false glory

Relish in the dream untold

Within it grander paths unfold

What once was dear proved meaningless

Our need is far beyond

So meet me on the winding road where only the desperate dwell

Behold in me a vision three

They shape the flow of all

In days of yore I craved release

Now must decline death's invite sweet

It was far too soon our paths would meet

Yet part of me is still there

For I was damned with clarity

A path of thorns and agony

Transfixed in eerie silence and overwhelming woe

Existing out of space and time, it spoke with not a word

"I'm here to give thee counsel... But never consolation..."

And worlds I knew came tumbling down in crumbling ruins and ashes

Dead planets and extinguished stars as far as the eye could see

Did fill my soul with ecstasy and nigh inhuman glee

Did shatter all that had been thus far

For the first time I could see

Then in the cry it uttered

That shattering banshee's wail

A universe within enclosed did lay

Proclaimed in unknown tongues

Yet my heart, it understood each poison word

Did strike the anvil of my soul

Of my soul

And every road entwined did graze

Adrift where lost souls wallow

On pathways where my answers lie

No child of man could follow

Cosmic storms swept all I was

The end of my existence

Within I braved a horror

Though never did I flinch

For in these dreadful eons my essence was reforged

An influx of wisdom blinding the virgin retina

Witness to damnation

Shepherd of the end

My despair is hollow

It heralds of rebirth

"Rebuild then in the places

Where only thought exists

As the others taste but ashes

In the furnace of your will"

A mighty fall, now forced to be

A vessel of purposeless misery

In remembrance dear I once lived more

Mere shadow of what was before

Such rigid sight, a puzzled past

Of what should be yet could not last

Not here nor there, but lost between

I am trapped in the eye of the Raven

It was the sound of rustling wings

Tore me from my vision grand

Defeaning silence pierced my being

Like a storm of nails

Lifeless, torn and broken

The beauty of my own demise

I collapsed unto myself

And plunged the heart of the abyss

Drifting

Lost in a timeless void

Cursed to eternally behold

The mirrored path unfold

How I howled and wept

Laughed and cried

Lived and died

I was empty - whole and perfect

A creature most fulfilled