there’s a particular hunger that doesn’t start in the gut. it blooms deeper, in a place that used to hold awe and now just echoes with the soft hum of static. that’s where i keep it; the ache, the restlessness, the bone-deep certainty that something needs to break. something soft, or something sacred. doesn’t matter. i just want to see it fall.

i wasn’t always like this. once, i burned with purpose, with direction. but that was centuries ago, and purpose doesn't age well. it rots. now i move through the world like a rusted machine — like clockwork, someone once said, as if repetition was a virtue, not a curse. wake, feed, vanish. repeat. the nights blur. the blood dulls. even the screams get predictable after a while.

and still, i endure. not out of will — there’s none left; but out of inertia. a body in motion tends to stay in motion. even if it’s empty. even if the motion is decay. i’ve walked through deserts with my skin peeling off in sheets under a sun i could barely escape. i’ve fed on tyrants and poets and people who loved too much to last. i’ve seen revolutions rise and die with the same final breath. but nothing changes. nothing really ever does. the same songs play in different keys. the same mistakes wear new faces.

some nights, i stare at myself in reflections i can’t cast. i try to remember what i looked like before the hunger settled in. before my soul got frostbitten from centuries of hiding from the light. i don’t remember my name. i don’t think i need it anymore.

because names are for people who still plan to be forgiven. and i — i'm past redemption. i don’t want grace. i want collapse. i want to burn it all down, down to the marrow, down to the silence. not as punishment, but as release. there’s a certain music in decay. a rhythm in the ruin. like bones breaking in time with a drum that no one else hears. that’s what like clockwork feels like — it’s the lullaby they play at the edge of oblivion. it's not the scream — it’s the rasping whisper after the scream, when your throat's shredded and you're still trying to sing. it’s dying in slow motion and liking it.

that’s me now.

not the predator of myth, not the suave bastard with a smirk and a goblet. no, i’m the thing that comes after the myths stop being pretty. the thing with dirt under its nails and centuries behind its eyes. the kind of vampire who remembers the first time blood tasted like rust. the kind that’s learned too late that immortality isn't a gift — it's a sentence.

but i still feel. and i still want. and what i want now is mess. chaos. something real.

i want to punch holes in the sky. i want to laugh with blood in my teeth and dirt in my lungs. i want to shatter the illusion of control with my bare hands. not because i hate this world, but because i’ve lived in it too long without ever truly touching it. it’s all gloves and masks and mirrored glass. i want to rip the curtain down.

because deep down, i’m not afraid of destruction. i crave it. there's purity in it, a rawness that life — true life — has forgotten. i want to scream not to be heard, but just to prove my lungs still work. i want to jump just to see if the fall will feel like something. anything.

there’s a story i never stopped thinking about. the one about the boy who flew too close to the sun. everyone talks about the fall. the hubris. the punishment. but no one wonders if he smiled on the way down. if, in those last seconds — when the wax melted and the sky opened and the air rushed past — he finally felt free.

because maybe the point was never to fly forever. maybe the point was to fall knowing you chose to.

that’s the feeling i chase now. that one pure second of unscripted, feral clarity. when you're not what you're supposed to be, not what they warned about, not what even you believed yourself to be. just momentum. just desire. just falling.

let them call it madness. let them say i’m unraveling. let them paint me with fear. i don't care. i’ve already died. i’ve already bled and buried and burned. there is no hell left for me to fear.

so i’ll tear through this night like a wound. i’ll drink too deep, laugh too loud, kiss like a knife. i’ll light a cigarette with the last match in the world and watch the sunrise try to kill me again.

and when it finally does — if it ever does — when the sky cracks open and the flame takes me home, i won't scream.

i’ll smile.

like icarus.

like i always meant to.