The Weight I Chose

Titan taught me numbers better than love— charts of hunger, futures thinning to a thread. I offered mercy measured without favor, they laughed at scales they feared to understand. When a world goes quiet, you can hear it breathe; I learned purpose from the sound of empty skies. Not hate, not rage—just calculus and winter, and the vow that no more children starve on lies. Call it bleak arithmetic, call it fate— I called it the only door still open. Call me mad, call me wrong— I carried what your hearts could not hold. Someone had to take the weight so the stars could breathe again. In my hand the chaos stilled— mercy, colder than a crown of gold. Hate me if it sets you free; I brought balance, not a throne. I walked the long road stone by stone— power, mind, space and time aligning. I paid the price no king could pay: a daughter’s laugh turned echo on a cliff of violet light. Her name still burns behind my eyes, a green spark falling through a broken sky. Salvation asked for what I loved the most; I gave it, and a part of me stayed there to die. Mercy isn’t gentle—mercy cuts, but it cuts me first, and deepest. Call me mad, call me wrong— I carried what your hearts could not hold. Someone had to take the weight so the stars could breathe again. In my hand the chaos stilled— mercy, colder than a crown of gold. Hate me if it sets you free; I brought balance, not a throne. The universe exhaled when I closed my fist; fields grew, ships found quiet lanes of light. I laid my armor down like old regret and watched a grateful dawn alone. You came with thunder for my head, seeking justice where you’d planted grief. I’d shattered the tools that forged the deed— let the farmer bear the soldier’s end. Perhaps there was another path— you never walked it, and neither did I. We choose the roads we have the will to pave, then call the map a monster when it leads us home. If history needs a name to burn, let mine— so the living keep their fires warm. Call me storm, call me shade— write my verdict in the dust. I will shoulder what remains so the young can learn to trust. If the night required one more loss, I was willing to be the cost. Hate me if it sets you free; I brought balance—then I was gone. And still I hear it: a quiet galaxy breathing. If that breath was bought by me, let that be enough.