The disc blazes with flame and fire,
Sending rays of brilliance to the ground below.
Both a blessing and a curse,
It gives both life and death.

Heat makes the very air waver
Above the hard, cracked ground.
Creatures hide under rocks,
To avoid the scalding earth.

I have walked the Burning Lands for far too long,
Looking for a way out.
The sun beats my spine,
Frying my fur and sending up smoke.

Salt works its way into my paws,
Paws ripped open by my wandering.
Each step burns,
Even rest is not a reprieve.

But I refuse to let myself die,
Whether of heat or despair.
Dying is the easy way out;
And so it cannot be my way.

If I die, it is over.
The pain and the joy,
The good and the bad.
And I will cease to be.

So I am trapped here,
Trapped in this crystal desert hellhole.
Crystal prisms bend the light and focus it,
Making it a burning beam sent at my soul.

They shimmer, their outlines vague,
But I know that it is not the heat.
Are the crystals real?
Are they there?

What here is truly here,
And what is in my mind?
Do I do this to myself?
What is the beam?

I can feel its hatred, its shame, its fury.
I feel my soul, scorched.
But from where does the beam come?
From within or without?

Are my spots the source of light?
Are the eyes that stare my own?
Are the crystals nothing but my claws?
Are the pains nothing but my fangs?

Who better to wound me than myself?
What cuts more deeply than my own claws?
What knows me better, knows my weakness?
What better to reach my heart than my fangs?

All my fury, all my hate, is turned in upon myself.
And as I stare, stare into my soul,
I know a simple, simple truth.
Change is the only constant.

I do not know how things will change.
I may crash and burn, destroyed.
Destroyed by myself.
Myself, my oldest enemy.

I could die.

I could die in fire and in flame and in salt and in sun.

I could die, I could ignite,
Ignite and provide fuel,
Fuel for my funeral pyre.
I could die.

I could die.

Or I could live.

Or I could live and escape the Burning Lands, though not without scars.

Or I could live.
Shatter the crystal prisms,
Run from the disc,
Run from the salt.

Or I could live.

I could live.


-- Citrakayah

Written mid-2012