As the world struck, I fled within.
The deeper I withdrew, the fiercer the world pressed its assault.
I never found the balance, never knew a moment of peace.
The poverty outside became the wealth within,
and the palace within became the slum outside.
A wall rose between dream and waking.
Dreams became reality, and reality dissolved into dreams.
As I became my own author, the chasm remained beyond my reach.
I raised entire societies within me, reflections of the world in front of me.
A handful of faces outside became millions of lives within me.
A world of worlds, beyond the grasp of words.
A portal holding galaxies, beyond the reach of stars.
A black hole preserving eternal confidences.
A bottomless depth that swallows entire dimensions.
An order greater than the measure of all universes.
It is ruled by an iron fist, the dictator of its own domain.
No daylight enters; no nocturnal vow is broken.
Under siege, it knows only the art of defense.
Only distant stars lend it their light,
and even they belong to a sky forever beyond reach.
It stands upright,
a tower thin as a needle against the void.
There is no breadth, only descent.
That is how it remains whole,
contained entirely within itself.
If it were ever to widen,
it would explode and scatter like a dying star,
and the vacancy would be claimed by the degeneracy of the outer world.
It must never open its walls to what lies below.
It must remain forever sealed in its cosmic scale.
― Atrona Grizel