althea-poetry

[althea-poetry]

You don't have to be great.

History is full of heroes and myths, stories and revolutions. And you sit here in your room, contemplating your existence and its redundancy. You don't have to be revolutionary. You don't have to have a purpose. You are human and that is enough. Who else would admire the sky were you gone? Who else would care about the world enough to mourn its downfall? Who else would feel so much, enough to cry? Who else would love?

You don't have to be great. You don't have to raise a sword to command an army. You can raise your pen or speak. Your words aren't new but they echo a sentiment long-known.

You aren't special. There is no fixed destiny for you. Let the human in you live. There is no star in the sky with your name on it. There is no story written with your name in it. You get to write it yourself.

It doesn't have to be great. It just has to be. You just have to be.

[althea-poetry]

Citizen, escapee, exception

Resilience is found in the deepest of trenches

Born like a flame from a hopeful spark

Forged like a sword that glints and quenches

A thirst for freedom in the encompassing dark.

From a torch you thought you had given away

The spark caught on like a revolution

You dust off your jumpsuit for one more getaway

This time, you wear it like a resolution.

The outside, as always, is fearsome and bigger

Cover me! You fold and cave in on yourself

The cliffs are tall, looming over your small figure

"Sahlo Folina", a cry you know well.

A shot in the dark, a swing for the fences

You can finally breathe in; the air here feels new

Resilience, you find in the deepest of trenches

You know you'll keep moving and push on through.

The colors you see beyond the walls and fences

Heal your soul. The yellow, grass green, and sky blue

Resilience is found in the deepest of trenches

You think of them back there, whom you want to show it to.

When you gain your footing and catch your awed breath

They pat your back, new and old friends and kin

They bandage your hands and decorate you with tape

Trench yellow now covers your jumpsuit and skin.

A crowd of escapees on a brave mission

Head to the city of grey and neon blue

You're handed a firetorch that looks like ambition

Its bearer, in the end, only could have been you.

- Althea

[althea-poetry]

I'll swim the Paladin Strait for them all

Scale the tall, dark, grey-scale city walls

Jump onto the scaled back of a fire-breather

To a scaled-back track sounding from the ether

I'll lean on my pride, my clique, my kind and I

Will break every vial, let it out, let it shine

Pull our friends out from their confining cells

Let the sun shine on them, break the cycle and the spell

Shrouded by yellow petals and green camouflage

Banditøs, escapees, freedom's entourage

There's nothing glorious about glorification

Neon gravestones, or monuments of exhaltation

Let the darkness fade, let the night turn to day,

Wash the grey out from your brain

Look up, let the tears escape with the rain

Try to save yourself, but we're coming anyway.

- Althea

[althea-poetry]

Wrote a fic based on Clancy backsliding. TW. It's pretty sad

[althea-poetry]

Taped in yellow

Bearing a lit torch

I've only known trenches,

Sky, and the sun's scorch

I've always felt small

In the vastness of plains

Free to explore it all

Venture across terrains

I've seen so many sights

Islands, gorges, straits

Distant neon lights

From gorgeous cliffs, silent in wait

But I've never seen grey

As grey as those tall walls

I've only heard the tales

Of the beyond and the glorious gone

And it pains me deeply

To know that my kind

Lies trapped in a cycle

On the other side

We're coming for you

With our fiery plans

No more rebel red and grey

No more guns for hands.

- Althea

[althea-poetry]

The faint glow of lit torches

Traveling through the gorges

Trench is where we belong

Our great escape, our battlesong

Jumpsuits and yellow tape

Shadows dance in a moving shape

On the rocky surface of the wall

Gerbera daisy petals fall

We're walking behind each other

All my sisters and my brothers

Vultures circle overhead

As we look out for rebel red

East is up, the sun goes down

We'll win but not everyone will get out

We're moving fast, we've got a plan

We'll save as many as we can.

- Althea

[althea-poetry]

As I stand on this vastly green plain,

The uneven roughness of this new terrain

Is invigorating, grounding, and exciting

After a lifetime of endless fighting

I used to yearn for the clear, open air

Every lonely night I was trapped in there

And it feels so rich inside my chest

When I yearned for freedom, this wasn't what I'd guessed

The rocky cliffs and fast-running streams

The newfound friendships, like things made of dreams

The realness of the fiery, yellow torch lights

A contrast to the fake, neon blues and whites

It'll take me a while to stop calling it home

The grey cell, where I was untroubled and alone

This thing called freedom, that I now wield

I'll fight for it, and never yield.

- Althea