Sitting on a fence with Coleridge and Wilde at 12:05am

I know why the mariner shot the albatross.

Not sure whether Coleridge does.

The ship sailed for many a cold night, some colder than the one I stand under now. North sky and wind wheeling overhead- I have walked with ghosts and have felt comforted by invisible hands on my shoulders, invisible breaths taken by those who stand silent, watching the moon, the soft night. Harvest has come, and as we sow... shall we reap?

We do not knowingly kill the things we love-- It is out of disbelief that all hope and happiness can rest in another mortal being. We seek forever. We seek it. At last, hovering above the words we say-- our fists clenching around the blade's haft-- we find it. It smiles, watching our face change.

As with Dorian, truth comes past the knife. The brave kill with a sword. A kiss is fruit of fallen resistance. Cowards and traitors, we who refuse to turn our backs once and for all, because we cannot.

I have been coward and king and traitor.

Day after day, day after day, they stuck, no breath or motion.
As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.

He stood apart, watched by shipmates. Condemned.

It takes mortality, not übermensch-ness, to stand beside contempt and look for the moon midst clouds.

I know why the mariner shot the albatross. To prove survival beyond trinkets, totems and lovers.

Free will is a killer.