Stories to Forget

Once a broken man asked for forgiveness for all of his failings But never does the world pardon those who reveal their weakness In disguise we trot through the belly of the beast day after day Though ultimately by course of nature’s laws we each must fall Calls of a lesser king echo through the darkness Foreshadowing the sad and naked truth of mine Writhing for the touch of deliverance I yearn on Until my voice bellows through these valleys no more But born of me no greater beauty shall ever see the dawn of day For parental dark shall never give birth to binding light In my heart nothing but unrequited toil and unsatisfied desire Wondrous ends will never tie together as I stand banished into shade Fairer touch cast down my crown, shattering the grand illusion Alone in the arms of finiteness a reason for pride was never earned nor given Sovereignty was never offered nor claimed Now nothing but a poor peasant I am So fairer touch cast down my crown I am a lesser king unworthy of your tender caress Lending me the strength to kneel before no one I am a lesser king unworthy of your gentle embrace Lending me the strength to bow down to no one

Submitted by johnmansley — Apr 26, 2025

Proudly I tread through the shadows with my head held high Still, I find myself in the daunting arms of trepidation (again and again) As I seal these pages with a sigh, bewailing my profound loss of innocence A curse can be a blessing cause with each letter I write history Collecting scars of a vacuous life in but poorly scribbled words Hear me, in the aftermath of hope lost to time I am telling you stories to forget Yet I see your gleaming eyes delving into mine, with every single line To rid myself of the torment, I keep on desperately screaming into the void these delusions of a sorry defeatist Whispers of death and sorrow, dire thoughts I must turn into verse to bail, to bail myself out It cannot be taken from me, amidst all the doubt and despair crumpled paper adorns the floor as I write these riddles Spewing hot embers from my throat only to cope with the pain Breathing as long as the pen gives meaning to the chaos Until the ink has dried Though tracing allegories for another short reprieve I won't make it to the end of this jaded chapter Hear me, In the aftermath of hope gone awry I am telling you stories to forget Yet I hear your mournful voice echo within mine, in every single line, till the end of time Hear me, In the aftermath of hope gone awry I am telling you stories to forget Yet I feel your lonely heart beating along-side mine, till the end of time

Submitted by johnmansley — Apr 26, 2025

It began as a foolhardy search for affection and trust A cure to the misery and the vast emptiness inside Misguided affinity of two solitary souls Longing for fellowship and warmth to abate the grief We got caught up in delusions, still hoping to build a better tomorrow When feelings formed into something that was not to be In times when love is just not enough Pain becomes these parting ways, slowly diverging And so, night by night we began to just drift apart Until our sorrows were all that endured To thrive something had to give, still it did not waver; keeping distance Teetering on the edge of ruin we squandered our precious devotions Hurting, aching - though never unrequited in the silent moments in between Promising to amend our blunders and too weak to truly accept Devoid of strength we may have felt remorse But never truly learned from all our mistakes There is no blame at the end of this as we depart down this sad and lonely path

Submitted by SerpentEve — Apr 26, 2025

No indolence shall ever keep us here No consolation will ever be enough We shall tear down the fake vaults of heaven And shape in our own image the greatest of all sacrifices At last we’re freed from tribulation Seeing the bereaved engrave on our headstones In reverence for our rites of passage These last syllables of bygone days These idle years were never ours to suffer through How can we ever fathom this immeasurable loss To become undone we had to take but a single step In foreboding of death’s embrace quietly drawing near Unbeknownst to us the predation of time just takes and takes Possessions that we held dear and all which made us whole In stark bright contour we clung to it so desperately All too soon we’d become but ghosts drawn out into the dusk It seems like sand, life just trickled through the cracks In greater footsteps left behind we follow in never ending tracks As we stood in awe in the face of beauty If the proud were never to dance away like petals before the wind To vanish like the ephemeral bloom of spring How could we ever fathom For this too shall pass

Submitted by BloodShrine — Apr 26, 2025

A disquiet state of being nothing But a distorted mask in the mirror Only deficiency I see staring back at me Perfection too far gone to comprehend Felicity too distant to discern I need an act of providence to value myself Instead, I forge a guilty conscience My likeness won’t let me rest, tempting me not to look back It’s grinning in my face, as I force myself to trudge on During a brief moment suspended in white light In my mortal fear I created this mirage, my likeness Alluring, yet forever out of reach Confidence stems from the sole perception of the other Our actions measured and taken for granted An infinite struggle for recognition, for satisfaction Aiming for what lies beneath these layers of illusion I try to step through the veil of self-deception But I stumble and end up grazing my skin again and again

Submitted by Sexy Gargoyle — Apr 26, 2025