Remember When Life Was Simple?
by Aozora Chiyumi
The following is a transcript of a messily handwritten poem found in Aozora’s archives.
Remember when life was simple? When death was just an event?
Not something which tore your heart apart and left your world in dissent?
Remember when life was simple? When taking it was easy?
Where the thought of having to do so again would never make you queasy?
Once all I wanted was world domination,
For all reality to be mine alone.
Now I must fight to maintain my creation,
Or in my death, be left alone.
Perhaps one day I’ll meet my demise,
But I shan’t make it an easy affair,
Too often now I feel those feelings rise,
Anger, hatred, loss, despair.
I felt my heart pounding, beating in my chest,
A constant barrage of reminders of the past,
When the accursed traitor’s first death,
Left me bereft of a reason to last.
Thus I found Sagiri, daughter of mine,
To whom I forever grateful,
For showing me, by leaving time,
For joy I can be less disdainful.
If only it helped when arrogant whelps and traitors came to attack,
Taking my friend and threatening ends to all that I’ve made get on track,
And thus did I almost die once again, and rise once again like a phoenix from the ash,
Yet one day I shall meet me end, so still I cannot afford to be rash.
If I could tell the past me one thing,
It’d be, actually, I have a whole list...
Oh, how things have changed since way back then,
I’m now a protector, not a madwoman.
Fear became love,
Love became grief,
Grief became anger at dire betrayal.
The captive child became a daughter,
The hunt for traitors turned to slaughter,
Am I broken? Am I fated to journey ever onward, ever suffering, every dying till the end?
Fate isn’t real.
I choose my future.
And here and now, what I desire, is to carry on no matter what,
For Sagiri.
For memories.
For all that I have gained,
And all that I have lost.
Things were once so simple. Now they are complex.
Even so I fight forever, up until my death...
