The Hero with No Fear

The hero with no fear

Strapped in his golden armor
Sword and shield mirror
The stars and moon
As he marches off to war

Behind him banners flew
Celebrating his departure
To the front lines
His master and his friend stand
By his armored horse

He mounts his horse
Smiles and waves
And courageously he goes
On to fight the infinite foe

Shadow, metal and blood
Mingle and wait
Patiently, anxiously
For the hero,
The hero with no fear

The hero with no fear
With parades and celebrations
Far behind him
Shivers in the starless night
For tonight he feels…fear.

He feared for his wife
He feared for his friends
He fears for his unborn child
He fears losing all he holds dear

The villains he must face
Are encamped upon his soul
Encamped upon the shadow of his soul
All those things he feared to
Lose, all those things he cares for…

Meant nothing. A dragon of ice
That dwells in his heart
His eternally burning heart
Whispers “you will lose all”

And the furnace that was his
Passion froze solid, into ice
His dread is the dragon in his
Heart and the horrors he’s seen
Torment him, torture him
The fear clenched his mind in
An iron grip and held him in its thrall

The frozen worm, the decimated mountain
In his mind grew clearer as his fear grew
The hero with no fear turned in his sleep
The last he would ever get. The last he would
Ever have the peace that he needs, the rest

The hero with no fear
Was horrified, was afraid for his life
The salty sting on his scars
Burned and he turned his face away
the burning, the fire consumes him

The hero with no fear stared out
At the commander of his enemies
A twisted version of his visage
The face his wife loved so
A mask covered all, blackened and burned
A cape from the broad shoulders, unable to breathe
To move, to speak. Horrified by what he was

His helmet closes in from the heat
Cutting off his breath
His chest heaves
He struggles to breath
A labor he must endure

His vision goes gray
A hideous simulacrum
Of things he once knew
His own voice a rasp
He can barely speak.

His eyes betrayed him. The confidence
Gone. His looks trapped behind a mask
He could not remove. The bravado, that he once
Possessed was trapped inside his head
His fear a jailor for the man he was

The hero with no fear remembers
Remembers what he was, who he was
The rakish tilt to his brow
His perfect smile
The angled handsome jaw
The face none could see
Trapped inside his head
The fear beneath the face
He wore in public shone through
Lightning arced across the sky
As it did so long ago
After he learned that all he
Loved was gone taken
One by the beast without
The other from the beast within
His fear snatched them both
And he wouldn’t see them…

But he would. He turned on the man
Who hurt him, the man within him
That trapped him, tormented him
In an armored shell of his own exterior
His body asking for release
Release from the prison of his mind
A world trapped in shades of gray
That would be gray no longer
He would return the color to this day
He defeats his oppressor

Tossed off the precipice
The edge, the rim
Scraping…nothing
Infinite drop into infinity
Falling, falling, forever more
The colors burst through
The sun shines again
He returns color to this day
His body broken, torn
Borne home to the places he knew
Returned home, to the people he loved
His time had come, the beckoned him on
On to an infinity of light, as opposed to the infinity
Of dark in which he was trapped for so long…so long
Fire again, but this time release, rather than imprisonment

Life beyond death
Never draw breath
Eternal rest he deserves
Sleep free from fear,
Sleep free from worry
Sleep for forever more
His soul moves on to a
Better place, a place free
From here, from torment
Truly the hero with no fear
No fear, a hero with no fear.