Strife -- A Poem

by Rondy Peredhil

A poem I wrote in a "concious stream of thought" style that's new for me. There's no indentations because it's a one-sided convuluted soliliquy in Cloud's POV. He's fighting with himself about Sephiroth.

"Strife"

by Sarah, Sephiroth Valentine

Disclaimer: I don't own anything or anyone mentioned here.

The Author's Note: Good luck trying to figure out what this means. :P

I live in a world unlike any other. The daemons of our modern day Apocalypse (as opposed to the Apocalypse that was supposed to happen last Millennium) unaffect me. The end of the beginning and the end have began for me. Don't try to understand. My logic is understood only in my world. Unless you want to come and share the ripe fruit of my misgivings? No? It's all right. My world is unloved every step of the way . . . if I haven't touched it. My world is neither here nor there. Can't you understand? Oh, yes. You were never in my world. But I've given you a taste, haven't I? No. Don't deny my love. It's there, even if you mistake it for hate. My world can do that. Can twist the truth. Can make my reality my dream. They are one in the same. They are part of a greater whole. It whispers. Can you hear it? What? You're deaf? Oh, yes. My dimensions exceed yours. It's my world. MINE. But I can't find my home. Where am I supposed to be? Right here? I don't understand. Your world is different from mine. My world is blue. And yours is black. Funny. We're like unbroken skin, bleeding beneath. So sane. They can't see that we're sane. I can't find myself. My world speaks nothing of lives to live. Am I alive? Don't I float above the living? You scar my ears with words from your world. Have I ever been there? I hear voices. They soothe the turmoil of the passing storm. They rip the flesh from off my bones. They mend the Styx, floods of salty water alike. But these waters aren't enough to carry you afloat. They carry me only up so high, before I fall back down. I hear her. I see her. Is she really there? Yes. She's there. She brings me fortune through your eyes. Eyes. So much like life. Eyes burning wounds into scarred red flesh. You don't understand. You don't understand! Do I understand? Are we part of some greater whole? Are you and I alike? No. I can't allow myself to be like you. I can't allow myself to be like HIM. Am I him? Why can't I remember him? I have pieces of him. I do not have a whole. Is that what you are? Is she the one that brings it all together? Black. Black shield. Black barrier. Blackness covering the sky. Blackness raining ash upon the ground. The ground flows forth as streamers of ribbon life run past death. Life and Death are parts of a greater whole. Could it be that we're like that? Don't deny our union. What union? Reunion? Rebirth? But I doubt that I'm alive. Am I alive as me? Is there a me? A you? An everybody whole? Could it be that's just what it is? Disjointed, left unfunished, scarred. Scars. I have one. You gave it to me. I am not like you. You are flawless. Smooth. Efficient. But I am scarred. You are scarred too? I don't understand . . . tell me. Tell me what it is that you mean to say? I don't want to go into your world. I'm scared. The children will find me. The she who I promised knighthood, she will find me. I don't want her to find me. I haven't found me. You haven't found you? But you've found me? Stop tampering with my world, my shell! You can't come here! Don't bring her here! She's not wanted! She tastes of rotten promises, rotten fruit slipping through the veins, becomming my blood. Rotten blood. Blood that pulses in my ears. Tell that sound to go away. It's from your world. Tell her light to go away. I don't want it. I want darkness. I want ceaselessness. I want an ever-running stream of unconditional love. You love me? You do? She loves me? Really? She loves all her children . . . Am I her child? I can become her child? Reunion . . . .Rebirth . . . Promised Land . . . Crisis? What do these things mean? Words are so trivial. I don't want to have a mouth. I don't want to have a body. Rebirth? Is that what Rebirth is? Black Materia? What is Black Materia? The Black sky? White Materia? Again, a part of a greater whole? . . . She . . . the other she, the she that is pure light. A different kind of light than the other she has to offer . . . but not the she that fell and demanded my knighthood. The she who is gone now. So many shes. And there are shes and hes on the Planet that isn't mine. Is the one of blinding light a she from here? No? She is not a she nor he? I don't understand? Rebirth, Reunion, Promised Land, Crisis . . . Black Materia . . .Meteor? Death? Life? Rebirth. Lifestream. Not the river of Styx, the salty flood of liquid that streams between consciousness and unconsciousness? Yes? In my world, none of this exists. You do not exist. So why do you invade? I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE ME ALONE! Why can't you leave me alone? What? No, I don't care about Rebirth! I don't care about the blinding light! Get it away! Away! Somewhere far, far away! What? Yes, I said I wanted to be reborn, but I didn't mean like that. I just want . . . peace. Does peace come with death? . . . Why do you want me to find out? You want me to kill you? For you to kill me? No. I won't allow it. GET AWAY! I HATE YOU! You hate me too? I LOVE YOU! You love me too? What are you? What? What am I? Don't ask me to stop confusing love with hate. Hate is good. It tenses. It makes the aware more aware. I am aware, am I not? I'm not? You don't know what you're talking about. You're insane. So insane. I want you to die.