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The perfect zero.
Zero is a jewel from a dump that dulls at the gem mine’s entrance.
Zero is a radiant star eclipsed by a moon that refuses to move.
Zero is a vacant residence primed for its new owner to furnish.
Zero is a hollow puppet that’s governed by iron strings.
Zero is a blank canvas that serves as a muse for heedless painters.
Zero is a childish dream bound to be mangled to shreds down its path.
I am the perfect zero,
Perfected by ten golden chains.
They once attached to a promising foundation,
Now they adorn the beautiful treasure it became.
And beneath that?
Ten is my inescapable constant.
Both the month and day of my genesis,
And the deadline of years I was promised.
It’s the number that clings to my back like a label,
But most notably, the chains that own me.
Better, keep going.
The chains are tyrants whose commandments I yield to—
Beyond absolute power, they’re ruthless, boundless, and permanent.
Beneath the golden paint, each one is made of my ugliest fragments.
Between the chasms, everything that hurts me is a part of me.
And the ten chains all link together, uniting as one to complete it;
The perfectly hideous husk of a human.
Perfect.
The first chain pervades my bones like a harmful splint,
Forcing refinement on every surface it extends through.
It wants to sculpt them as ideal tools for my ambition—
An ambition that I once chased like my prey,
And the basis of all my subsequent suffering:
The Sport.
I would’ve never imagined that my ultimate passion could become so debilitating,
Nor that it would end up as the denominator to all my miserable numerators.
I never intended to pursue what would hinder my happiness,
I was just an ignorant, foolish child who painted his chain golden—
To illustrate his dream of becoming a champion.
Now, it only serves as a reminder that I did once have a reason.
But the reason has lost all meaning now.
Everything I’ve ever built for myself stands on the stadium’s cynosure—
The field I would dance through with childlike wonder as I encountered the purest of bliss.
Now they’re just the grounds in which I suffer, and traverse while feeling nothing.
I no longer play the game—I endure it.
At first, the chain was a thin string that I could’ve released if I wanted to—
But I didn’t.
I let it grow,
And now it won’t release me.
If I never discovered the sport, then I might not have ended up like this.
But, it’s pointless to latch onto such things and be devoured by senseless regret.
That’s a waste of precious time, and serves no real purpose—
If I can’t even visualize the life I lost to my choices,
Then I won’t subject myself to grieving it.
It was never mine to begin with.
The chains are mine—or rather, I’m theirs.
I can’t imagine not being tethered to them, yet I wish more than anything I wasn’t.
I’ve given up my entire existence for this stupid game—
And I can’t even remember if it was fun.
It might’ve been.
But it wasn’t worth it.
The second chain encloses my throat like a collar,
Extending out from the nape as it’s leash.
It’s a sinister, indomitable force that never ceases its suffocation.
And despite having already drained me of all my blood,
It still pierces my skin like a lion’s claws:
The Scion.
He’s a monarch that never sits on his throne—
As he prefers to dance on the bodies of his starving subjects.
He’s an absolute dictator that tortures with words,
Until his own voice replaces the one in their minds.
Yet even with a heart black as ink, he is golden.
It’s emitted from the implicit crown on his head,
In the fortune he employs to nurture his status,
The beguiling words he abuses to swindle commoners,
And that deadly smile which somehow hides the malice.
He ties himself to you at your lowest,
And makes you think he’s the tie holding you together,
So that once you finally realize he’s a bond holding you back,
You’ll already be his toy—one that’s broken beyond repair.
A chill of death surrounds the costume that he wears to deceive with—
And it’s only ever felt once the act is performed.
He tricks, he torments, and takes pleasure in it all—
Even insisting that his victims do too.
He painted his chain gold to ensure I’d never escape him—and he won.
He’s always there—from the month of our birth to the stage we perform on,
From the ball I pass for him alone, to the way in which I pass it.
He’s a phantom of my playstyle, haunting me like a ghost who’s still alive.
He’s there in the venomous words that slide off my tongue at my younger—
In hopes they may redirect his path away from the scion.
Everywhere I go, he trails behind me like a shadow more striking than I.
The chain I loathe the most shines so bright it’s almost blinding,
But not like the sun—rather a facade of it,
Like the devil ignited by his own hellfire.
He’s not the sun—he’s a cruel and callous moon that orbits me incessantly.
He left me in ruins, he made me wretched,
He molded the perfect prince of the prince—
Who now exists only to serve him.
As long as he exists, I will never be free.
The third chain riddles my eyes and their vision,
Like a pair of rotten glasses that healed my sight with harm.
My view was once blurred with childish delusions,
But they gained a clarity so hurtful that every color dimmed—
A reality induced by my most important experience:
The Kingdom.
It’s vast and regal, stunning all that traverse it—
Although, I can’t be absolutely certain,
As I served most of my time there in a dungeon.
I explored as much as one strand of DNA out of an entire nucleus of wonder.
However, I’ve been told that the land I’ve given my life to is golden.
It’s the sphere in which I had to grow up to survive it,
It’s the gem mine I fled to on my pursuit of greatness,
And the trench I fell in as punishment.
I traveled there for opportunity,
Yet I was an opportunity for the inhabitants to use however they pleased;
Something to play with, someone to serve them—
A victim to abuse, an outcast to insult, a child’s dream to crush,
Or an empty vessel for them to leave their dirty leftovers.
I was a clean zero that they chose to fill with stains.
Before I left, I painted the chain a bright gold that matched how I imagined it,
But from the moment I stepped on its soil, I’ve only seen a dreary mold.
The paradise of my youth turned out to be an eyesore,
And me—a defective product of it’s torture.
I have no good memories from this place, and yet I still reside there.
It embedded itself within me like a permanent monument,
Even though no matter how much I seem to please them—
I’ll always be a mere stray on their grounds.
When summer finally ends,
The kingdom’s atmosphere will match the misery of its contents.
I bathe in that moment every year.
The fourth chain violently grips my ankles,
Keeping me grounded to the roots it rose from.
My view of it is obstructed by the third—but never the feeling.
No matter how many times I try to leave and start again,
Escape is forbidden by my greatest impediment:
The Source.
A lovely desert populated by garbage fostered my existence.
I was born in the wrong place to have had such a dream—
My origin was the first and main reason why it shattered.
The most promising piece of trash in a dump is still a piece of trash at the core.
And yet my only happy memories arose in said dump.
It’s the home of my first golden trophies—
And the land I’ll represent for the supreme one.
I have innate loyalty to this place but I’m compelled to betray it even still.
Because it’s utterly pointless.
The country is unsavable and I have no desire to be its hero.
I don’t have the time nor energy for such futile efforts—
But every jewel in the kingdom take notice of this chain first,
Both of which never miss an opportunity to remind me where I came from—
That I don’t belong and never will.
I catch a glimpse of the nuisance glistening in the sun while I play—
Vengeance oozing from the space where its grasp intensifies.
At times I almost regret provoking that unyielding ire.
But I don’t care.
No matter the betrayal, my value to them exceeds their desire to bite me back.
Since it was the start of my success, I can always return there,
And exploit it as a stage for my rebellion.
Perhaps I’m less detached from my roots than I thought,
We’re both spiteful and tenacious at the core.
The fifth chain is the most painful of them all,
As it completely envelops my heart.
Once upon a time, the very same shackle felt like a warm embrace—
Until it grew sharp edges that stab me back when I stab it.
The one that merges with my bloodstream, as its own core is a perfect match:
The Kin.
With him I share a tie of blood—
A connection I can hurt but never break.
He shares with me a common pattern and background,
But is always an unreachable distance away.
Yet I share the same grounds as the one I want to escape—
I could stand worlds away and still be bound to him.
This one single chain hinders my ability to endure the others—
And nullifies my power to defy them.
It’s always a looming presence—something so precious and attainable;
In danger of cruel chains that want to make him hollow just like me—
A factor I always must consider every time I dare to make a choice.
I’ll protect this chain before anything else,
Even if it means abandoning everything—him included.
He’s the chain I wish I could set free instead of destroy,
Because I don’t want to be his chain—and I refuse to be his scion.
Though, that might just be inevitable.
This chain was once a hand that intertwined lovingly with my own,
Bestowing them a comfort that bypassed our distance for years.
Now, it’s a painful force that holds me back—
And I’ve become the very same for him.
He knows nothing,
So it’s my job to teach him before he’s taught the way I was.
I wish he’d understand that I’m not happy about this shift either—
This is just how it has to be.
Such is a consequence of a tampered with zero—
Reuniting with the one who only it can tamper.
He’s the golden source of memories that remind me of when I was human,
And so he is the only chain I painted gold myself.
Gold lasts a lifetime—so it ensures that no matter how much our bond is ruined,
It’ll never cease entirely.
Though, maybe it should.
Not like it’s worth keeping anyway.
The sixth chain curves around my brain like a spiral,
Drilling rules through the surface, and expectations of its presence;
A numerical order that I follow like a creed—
In the game, my words, and surface—I am perfection’s ideal vessel.
And such a force won’t forgive failure to embody it:
The Sequence.
Of all my chains, this one exhibits the purest of gold,
As it’s the very embodiment of perfection and beauty.
Ten individual numbers arranged in a flawless order,
Surround me like a galaxy where I’m the central star.
The ten digits circle around my head like a ghost,
Whispering absolute commands to hollow ears.
Their hypnosis is one I fall under voluntarily—
As adherence to perfection is an act simpler than living.
I am unlike my fifth who is defined by nine.
So close but so far—full but never quite complete;
Like a sudoku puzzle, his sequence is random and right,
But not perfect.
It lacks zero.
I could sense it in the match when I first began to try—
When I became the key I never had, and awakened his instincts.
He is the antonym of perfection—but a diamond in the rough,
While I am stuck as gold eternally.
I may have once been a diamond, but I suppose I’ll never find out.
As long as this chain cages my mind, then I’ll never amount to more.
Even the perfect ratio is irrational—
It’s sequence curved and free, stretching all the way to infinity,
While I’m confined to a square that wears its name.
How ridiculous—for a limitless sequence to bind me.
How can one be truly perfect without freedom?
I am the perfect servant, perfect image, perfect player, perfect corpse—
Perfect but never enough to break free.
I am an artificial perfection built on the basis of zero,
So how do I surpass perfection?
How can I defy it?
You can’t. Not when you’re defective.
What a tepid waste.
The seventh chain seals my mouth and spreads throughout my face,
Piercing limbs to comport me like a puppet, so I always behave how I must.
It’s a forced obedience to the laws of my chains—
Which have concealed each remaining shred of my genuine truth,
That I can no longer discern them myself:
The Act.
Beyond an ideally shattered athlete,
I am an actor whose performances never cease.
I present myself like gold—a desirable prize to be won.
No, not quite a human, but above that.
A treasure.
I bathe to wash away the filthy feelings this chain inflicts,
Even though the act itself is a compliance to its rules.
Something is laced in the habit that just urges my frequent indulgence—
Perhaps a feeling, a breakthrough, a reflection, or even remedy.
But whatever the reason may be, it’s hygiene lacking any purity,
Merely a mean to facade cleanliness.
I can only hope they don’t see right through it,
The commoners won’t—they’ve never cared enough to peer beneath the surface,
Even in times when I wanted them to.
I’d shut my eyes in those moments of discomfort,
And see the same sight as them when they admire me;
Nothing.
The only ones who see right through me are derivatives of the chains themselves.
Only they can see the flaws I try desperately to shroud,
For they painted the fool’s gold that I must pretend is real.
If it was real, then this would all be so much easier.
But such feelings don’t matter.
They only care about what I have to offer them—
And the same goes from me to them.
Perfection has everything, and I am no exception.
I accepted the mistreatment a long time ago,
It was there in the terms I consciously signed off on.
I’m aware of the rules, and I follow them without fail—
I play the game of presentation more than the game I play it for.
I don’t know why they desire me.
Visual appeal triumphs over expressions and statements I suppose.
But no matter—it’s that very desire I know how to use for my advantage.
Anyone who desires me is just a variant of the one who made me—
Or at least, the version of me this chain brings out.
It revised my instincts entirely—to obey commands and comply to requests,
Even allowing my barriers to be penetrated, so long as I get what I want in return.
I don’t dare utter denial if my compliance will reap rewards.
I’ve made my peace with it all, because one day my efforts will gain their purpose.
I’ll be the their prodigy, their treasure, the leading actor of every match—
I’ll be the Scion’s Sycophant until my performance is finally recognized.
Whatever happens, I won’t react, waver, oppose, or break.
The chain has forced my indifference and unlocked my gates,
That I no longer need its force to act.
Nothing bothers me anymore.
...---...
The eighth chain managed to seize my skin,
And it was merciless—leaving no inch unbreached or unbruised,
Even puncturing my brain to ensure I won’t forget its venom.
And I don’t, I feel it most prominently, on every level and in every sense—
So much so that I haven’t noticed it’s presence in years:
The Damage.
The essence of this chain is almost comedic—
As it’s the very turmoil inflicted upon me by the others.
I don’t care to recount all the harm it's caused me,
Because in truth, I no longer feel impacted by any of it.
The chain has left me in a persistent state of hunger, sickness, and exhaustion—
And yet, I feel nothing from it.
Emptiness.
It’s unlike the emptiness of my old starting zero—
An auspicious foundation that actively felt the crave for something.
Rather, the eighth chain’s presence has left an absence that I can’t help but notice.
It’s almost a feeling, but closer to an awareness of the lack of it.
If I was still inclined to affliction, then I’d probably call this emptiness…
Harrowing.
But beyond the ten unbreakable chains,
There are some ties that I can destroy.
Ones that lack permanence—that were crafted by my own choice.
And so I’ll choose to let them go now.
I don’t need anything else to bind me.
I’ll change my position,
I’ll abandon our dream,
I’ll sever all relations,
And discard the emotions I hardly felt in the first place.
Any craving will be forsaken—
After all, what purpose is there in chasing a goal,
When the chains don’t allow me to score them?
And hope?
I won’t even let it touch me.
This chain is a thief that stole me from myself.
He’s so far gone now that I can’t even remember his existence.
The damaged becomes the damage to others—
It’s a nonsensical, but unavoidable change down the path of true nothingness.
I was a vacant space for them to explore and fill and use how they pleased,
And now I’m an empty human filled with the remains of their choices.
It’s exactly like the gold rush—
I’ve been mined for every last drop of gold I might’ve had.
But I don’t even care anymore.
None of this shit matters.
It makes me sick.
The ninth chain infects my organs,
Assaulting every system my body needs to function.
One day they’ll finally collapse, and fall victim to its wrath.
I feel it seeping throughout my entire interior—
That ever approaching reality that follows me closer than ten itself:
The Imminent.
Unlike the ratio I emulate, my lifetime isn’t so infinite.
Freedom from these chains is an undefined limit—
And I’m the desperate function that chases it eternally,
Yet never manages to touch it.
My time will meet zero before I do.
Death is impatient for me specifically.
It desires me in the same vile way the world does,
So I won’t even be free when it takes me—
Even if I’ll be more alive.
However, if I’m lucky, it might be an escape.
Maybe I’ll see the golden gates instead of a second hell.
I once believed I was untouchable, unstoppable, and unbreakable—
But I was deadly wrong in every single sense.
I once promised my fifth chain that I’d be by his side for as long as I live,
And yet I left, even before the ninth one dragged me from it.
I’m told that I destroy beautifully—but I see no beauty in breaking that promise.
Though, maybe I can return to his side once I’m gone,
Even if he never understands enough to feel me there.
Life is so fragile, and it’s time is always withering—
Yet I’m wasting all my precious golden years on nothing.
But I don’t know what else to do.
I don’t know what I can do except surrender.
There’s not a chain that I’ve not surrendered to.
From the moment they all became tangible and told me how much longer I had—
Acceptance was my first and only step.
I’ve given up entirely.
Soon enough, death will take me,
And I won’t fight that either.
I’m not even grieving in the now—
Because I’ve been dead for a long time already.
The tenth and final chain clutches my hands as they reach out,
Towards an impossible they’ve never managed to grab.
I can’t even let go of the bind, as it’s separated from me by infinity.
It’s the chain that perfects me wholly, yet is the outsider among the ten—
Even following my approaching end, this one still succeeds it:
The Goal.
My most shameful shackle.
Hope—It’s such a useless, lukewarm attachment that only serves to hinder.
But when my hunger transcends the insatiable,
And every cell in my body screams to quench it,
I must accept that it’s in my nature to crave.
It’s the closest chain to my innermost core—
Always chasing that fools golden solace.
When the ninth ends my misery at last,
The tenth will follow me to the grave.
I don’t dare make the choice of latching onto hope—
But sometimes I can’t help but have it anyway.
It’s like a feeble reminder that there was a time I was human.
Hope lingers with me along with the echo of their hateful words,
The everlasting feeling of their invasive skin,
And the memories of my every misfortune in which hope was my only guide.
It's ridiculous—but only hope held the comfort that willed me to fight.
I don’t withstand the chains that restrain me with insurmountable force,
Because those tiny scraps of hope work in tandem with defiance.
It’s there in the bracelets I wear to speak to those who care to listen,
It’s in the support I give to programs that challenge their fixed beliefs,
It’s in the plays I make that don’t conform to the place they forced me in,
It’s always there, in the acknowledgement I grant to those who are free—
Those who resemble me before the ten chains conquered him.
All while these little moments are broadcasted to the one I know is watching.
And I know he understands.
My efforts may all just be in vain,
And if I wasn’t already existing on narrow time,
broken beyond repair, and given up past care of consequence,
Then I wouldn’t be so bold to reach my hand out—
But the tenth chain impels it toward the impossible.
The impossible…
Not quite an escape from the inescapable chains—but something more.
Something to breach the limiting boundaries that replaced the ones I built myself,
Something unable to be calculated by the numbers of my coded sequence,
An existence so impossible that it can’t be explained or justified:
An eleventh chain.
√-1 = i
The eleventh chain would embrace my soul—
A concept as mythical as this miracle I’ve envisioned.
It would manifest in the essence of my being that I lost so long ago—
My truth, my core, my untouched innermost zero.
An eleventh anomaly to complete a whole team—
It would be composed of clean, authentic diamond rather than a dreary gold,
And it would take a shape contrasting the rest—a shape designed to unlink them,
Having the power to free me from the ten golden chains:
The Key.
Ten is my constant.
And to embody that number is to embody perfection itself,
But I see ten as a limit that forbids me from going any higher.
If being controlled by externals and trapped in oneself is the truest form of perfection—
Then I want to surpass that perfection.
It’s a preposterous notion, that much is certain.
I’m sure the scion would laugh in mockery if he heard it.
I shouldn’t aim for such a goal—I can only score them vicariously through him,
But what I crave more than anything else is this key to set me free—
To take me back to zero.
Zero is not the lowest value—it is the core of every value.
It’s the equator, the soul, the nothing required for the existence of an infinite everything.
My zero was an empty void of my choice, before its value was quantified by others.
And now, the former someone became a ruined and ugly something—
Having lost the presence of a null that could’ve made him everything.
I was more when I was nothing.
Ten is completion.
It implies the end of one’s cycle of life, and the start of a brand new chapter.
But I want to surpass that cycle—I want to shatter it.
One unified force nullified my zero to create a dichotomous, twisted perfection—
Ten chains forced me to be perfect, yet their existence is proof of flaw.
If they could execute something so impossible, then I can do the same.
I want to crush it all, and revert to the zero I was at the core.
I don’t want a new chapter, I want a new story.
I want to destroy every aspect of my existence and restart—
I want to destroy everything.
Destroy it then.
But I won’t.
I won’t destroy anything.
I know I can’t,
So I won’t waste any precious time trying.
I know these chains like extensions of myself.
They’re so intertwined with my body that it isn’t even mine anymore,
And so intertwined with one another that they’re one.
They hold hands and sink their nails inside me—
Having drawn so much blood from me already, that now I only crack.
When that fateful day finally arrives,
And they all simultaneously strangle me,
I will stand still and accept it.
Hope might cling to me through it all, but I won’t requite its insistence.
I don’t possess the key to myself, nor the fictitious one needed to free me.
So, I won’t keep dreaming for an eleventh chain to save me,
Because in the end, a chain is still a chain,
And caging is all it’s good for.
None of this shit even matters.
I’ve long since passed living,
And I can’t even remember being human.
Fate is fate, chains are chains,
And there’s no meaning in fighting either one.
I’ve wasted so much time searching for a solution,
Only to find that acceptance is the only one that exists.
And so, I’ll spend the remainder of my wretched existence
As a willing victim of The Ten Golden Chains.
Because frankly, I don’t care what they do to me anymore—
I know they all must think I’m perfect.
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