Gotham

The weary of the world dress for success in wonder of a wonderful ending. Ever the optimistic pessimist, with narcissistic tendencies, I run rampant through the sewers of dread. After all, it's with cynics and scoundrels that I call to family gatherings. I am loved. Ever so. Sickeningly sought for future considerations to a woman so wondrous that my boisterous irony-drenched ego can't call Diana of Themyscira.

At bat, I am man. Bruce Wayne, or through bruised rain I am drowned in delight. When night comes, I see dents as thick as Harvey's, and face eNigma's like Eddie of lore. But a riddle I do not solve, the one that's got my tongue caught by the cats of leather and Kyle. Maybe the snow is good enough to snuff a Cobblepot, or perhaps I'm not alive at all.

It's a joker. The thought that I may become this knight of Gotham. This ... festering hero to which I spit foul about. She can't help but pull me along her positive tracks. The kind a user hides from her mother. However, like the purple-clad tortured clown, the smile of a promise is plastered all over her face and intentions. Without the truth I hold over a fire, burning in the bins of an alley-way which saw light to the death of both my teachers, I get caught. Like a moth. I'm strung up live Ivy and poisoned by the way she says "It'll be alright". I dream of one day making the way she tells me I'm good come off like fact, instead of fiction. But the friction that keeps my wrist tied to my waist, instead of parallel to the ground, scribbling on notebooks is what keep the fog from letting my eyes have passage to the days where I'm no longer slave to this inebriation of self-doubt. Dance, like a drunk, a delirious Harlequin.

I fight for myself, and save the weakness for you. And here I am. Naked again. A reader's eye pries me to my skin, and exposes what haunts behind my lids. It is here my danger feels safe. Left it too long, I have. Feasted on my immortality, and incendiary ability to feel inadequate.

The suit I wear to protect myself will return, under lock and key, to the cave where I found it.

wf.