Raven had once believed the world was a poem. That it was formed of lovely words, ink blending together as they were strung into sentences and stanzas. He had believed that all stories were beautiful, even tragedies, for why else would someone willingly suffer if not for beauty?
Now he realized, the world was painted in sorrow, painted in all the wrong shades, the colors clashing so harshly, so blinding one had to avert their gaze. There was nothing beautiful about tragedy. The world was not a poem, its words were crudely thought up and thrown together in all the wrong order.
The mind often romanticized the past. When he found himself looking back, he often found that he could only recall the best parts, not the pain, not the tears and screaming nor any of those blurry moments at the end. Tragedies appeared beautiful because they were a product of the mind, a product of the same eyes that remained averted from the cruel vivid harshness around them.
Raven had once believed the world was like a dream. Now he wished nothing more than to wake up.