Free Victory

By Panagiota Zikou

And if each wound we bore

became our death — 

what then, little warrior, untutored god? 

Would we live but a moment,

 or forever?

 Would we ever have been at all?

Our flesh is spun from journeying;

 if you slayed me,

 you would never return —

 I am afraid.

Yet if we lived unending,

 you would never rise as banner,

 nor as a clear wound.

 But if they scarred you endlessly,

 the desperate and I

 we would never have been at all.

The world is boundless,

 etched at last

 by the beings of great unknowns

 and the countless desires of the tiniest infants

 who surrender the signs of their vanishing to the sun.

 And the marks upon the map of their bodies

 are more still —

 left behind,

 very plundered.

But may the sun comfort you —

 and may you die for it.

May you always behold the sun,

 as the soul of fire rises holy

 from the breath of its own ashes.

I speak to you, for death was your victory.

And with all the signs of desecration upon their lips

 they desire you — unknowing —

 for you are not present

 as night is sudden and violent.

All can see the radiance,

 Prince — 

yet no one knows how to die for it.

 So they live,

 only to die.

By Panagiota Zikou