in my world

in my world
there is honor among thieves
and also the exiled
i know because all my heroes have been ruined
or written from history
now i walk their footsteps
proud yet condemned
my own prints so much smaller,
which i once thought
meant so much more defeated
and at first i lay awake at night, burning
ashamed to scream in their empty rooms
unable to change a thing
but still abandoned
i had to learn
a thing or two about persistence,
had to learn
that even walls have ears and
can be shaken
and that one warrior's march won't
cut a path through anything
much less the stasis of the foolish
--it is the multitude of the wise,
those who "care too much",
that breaks through the surface and leaves
a lasting impression
an imprint on society
and that build-up of intensity documents,
through time and struggle and loneliness and misunderstanding,
the eternal war for eternal peace
and our strength through the chaos,
our desire to keep pushing even when the walls show no signs of cracking,
our honor and our loyalty in a world where those no longer exist,
we of ruined nobility