#his reflection

He stood first by the river, watching water kneel at the feet of stone. His grip was iron, his gaze unbroken. I am master here, his body declared, He whispered quietly to himself: mastery is temporary— the river gnaws, the years strip, and time itself dares to test me.

He remembers…In the shadows, he bound another to him. Leather cut the silence, wrists kissed by rope. Your cries are temporary, he said, your trembling will pass into sleep. But the bruise I leave, the memory of my hand at your throat— that is permanent, a flame that lives long after the skin cools.

Standing in front of the mirror, he saw two selves— one towering, whip raised; one kneeling, mouth open, undone. Power is temporary, he admitted, it slips, it changes hands. But the hunger—the need to command, and the hunger to surrender— that is permanent, woven into the blood of every man.

Not every man is lucky, he said to himself.

Lovers came, arched and pleading, their moans brief as summer storms. Bodies are temporary, he knew, their heat fades, their lips fall silent. But longing is permanent, a chain that tightens across lifetimes, a collar that never rusts.

At the cliff’s edge, the void roared like a challenger. Strength is temporary, it hissed, your muscles will fail, your skin will wither. But he bared his teeth, and answered not with fear but fire: Yes—yet I take even this. I fuck the abyss. I command death to kneel, and in that surrender, I rise.

He returned to the river. Water licked the stone, struck and yielded, again and again. The stone bore every caress, permanent in its silence, yet shaped by every lash of the current. He pressed his palm to both— to the fleeting, to the eternal— and whispered:

I am master, and I am flame. Temporary as flesh, permanent as desire. Even as ashes, I burn. Even as dust, I command.