All the songs after our names.

And though we suffer, we achieve, and though we ache, we rise -even brighter as life inflames us with falling stars and burning dreams: the charred remains of precious heavens once our own, turn into mud as we rinse them with our tears and in that mud we stab the flags, torn as they are, the flags that still call sleep to battle, still rage their voiceless challenge to the morning.

Purposeless and vacant of cause, we learn to wage our wars for the taste of blood alone, the warm reminder of transition. And though we've watched the world go down ablaze and though we saw our peace slip dead between our fingers, the fist they make is never empty, for though devoid of claims, it's ever full of want. Want for the great things that are not there, want for the windmills and the knighted selves, want for gods and for flesh, a drive to consume and be consumed, a thirst for second faces and a billion second bodies, for the holiness and the animal alike. And though we will forget, we never shall. And though we will regret, we never will.

And though we have seen kings turn beggars, we have seen beggars waste empires; when the thought must be taken apart by the breaking of bodies, when the wish must be lashed by the tendons of earth. For though we would forgive, we can't. To the land of no-mores and the one-last-song oceans, we pay tribute; with scorn. To the dead gods of forevers and the memories for the trip, we pay homage; with fire.

And though we suffer, we transcend, and though we ache, we conquer.