Your self hatred has fed into an arrogance
In which the thinnest pathway cuts
Between the freezing fog and fervent flame
Where one could balance if he chose,
Swinging his cane from compliment to castigation.

But what purpose would humbling you serve
If the flames would be stoked
Or if each time the lips part was to preserve your ego?
Could you ever be convinced of one or the other,
That neither Prometheus nor the Antichrist was in control,
But some misunderstanding that had lost
All semblance in your cells and soul?

Your ideas
About everything pitch an older self that moves
Robotically through a world of flesh and facsimile,
That will not betray itself by way of wanting
Anything it may achieve but grieves continually
Once what could have been had is no longer
At hand or in hand and crushable.

A lotto churns tickets in your mind
Without knowing what you are to bestow
The blind warring eyes cursed and crossed.
And yet still you count on someone to take control,
Some adventurer clued to the warped terrain
Where under the crust you proclaim a treasure lies,
That is unsullied by even the grease of your own palm.

So what is it you want to find: a slave to exhume and whip
Or a cruel suitor who gives you no mind?
And through all of it I suspect you only want to know
If a complete darkness exists in the womb of time
Where you can live forever, perfecting your cues
And blunting the blades where by mere survival
You leave everyone behind, where your fate
Will not be decided by a mortal’s failure
To decipher your sphinxlike design.