You accused me of stolen words - see poetry Six-Eight-Two-Three,
As if sorrow could be owned, as if pain had a key.
But before you raise the gavel, before you bare your hook,
Let me dust the cover gently of your Advanced Ritual book.
(see Nicator's Ashtan Wing)

You speak of stars and circles, of intent and sacred gate,
Of candles placed with purpose, of power you calibrate.
Yet tell me - without trembling, without the veil you lift-
Are these symbols truly yours, or borrowed truth made stiff?

You summon septagrams and rays in careful lines of force,
But charts of soul and body long ago mapped that course.
From older tongues than Lhirjen, from fires you didn't light at all,
From hands long turned to ashes, still teaching through the night and fall.

You wish to guide like ghostlight, pale and almost kind,
Yet strike like honed iron when challenged in your mind.
A blind hand offering mercy, a blade held sharp and fast -
So tell me which is honest: the future or the past?

Did you steal the Magen David, six points locked in grace?
From fire and water crossing for protection - in ancient sacred places?
From rites that predate titles, from myths you didn't earn,
From wheels that keep on turning while new names slowly burn?

If echoes are a crime, then language stands accused.
If feeling can be stolen, then none of us are true.
You say "begin again' as if rebirth were always clean -
But even rites of renewal remember where they've been.

I do not claim invention, I claim the right for me to speak.
I claim the lived collapse, the nights that made me weak.
I stand by every echo, every rhythm that I choose -
For nothing real is stolen, and nothing lived is used.

So if you name me thief, then name yourself the same,
Or drop the mask of purity, the ritual, the flame.
For words are ash and breath alike, they pass from hand to hand -
And none of us are owners, only witnesses who stand.

Fourteen times my head was taken in your gates,
Same old cycle: new to full moon.
Still I stand my ground unshaken,
Tempered steel of twenty suns.

Penned by my hand on the 15th of Ero, in the year 998 AF.