Cinders in the Azure

Destiny was a liar, a silk-voiced trickster

whispering prophecies in the dead hush of twilight,

its fingers dusted in azure light,

tracing paths I never meant to walk.

I stood beneath a cloud-strangled sky,

watching the embered veins of a dying sparkler,

its fleeting fire spitting against the dark,

hissing like the promises you made

and never meant to keep.

The night is full of ghosts.

They flicker in the hollow glow,

their laughter twisted into smoke.

I could name each one,

could trace the scars they left

like constellations across my skin.

You were among them once.

A shadow pretending to be a beacon,

your words drenched in honey and arsenic,

laced with the kind of warmth

that freezes bones from the inside out.

I loathe you.

Not in the casual, passing way,

but with a firestorm in my marrow,

with the fury of collapsing stars.

It is not rage but something worse—

a hatred that has settled,

rooted itself into the sinew of my being.

Even now, I see your face in the embers,

in the sparks that fight against oblivion,

a flickering thing, desperate to be remembered.

But I will not grant you that mercy.

The sky above is empty,

an abyss swallowing light,

and I wish the same for you.