Critique logo

Diaries to Nietzsche

Fragments Written to Unmake What Was Preserved.

By LUCCIAN LAYTHPublished about 13 hours ago 4 min read
A Record of Burning Ideas, Not Inheritance

I do not present myself to present thought.

Nor do I present thought to define it.

I cannot introduce the dead

they need no mediators, nor do they seek immortality in exhausted explanations.

What I do here is not revival, nor interpretation, nor defense of ideas worn out by sanctification.

It is mercy killing.

Killing ideas when they become cages, when they live longer than they should, when they are carried on shoulders instead of tested on the edge.

This thought was not written to be preserved, but to be consumed until combustion.

Whoever does not burn the idea has not understood it.

These pages do not save their author, nor seek to exonerate him, nor ask for his immortality.

They grant him what he wanted in the first place: to be lost

not secured.

If ideas fall here, that is not betrayal, but completion.

And this — in my view

is the most beautiful introduction that can be given to a thought that refused to be a statue and chose to be a danger.

LUCCIAN.LAYTH

Between a heartbeat and an eardrum,

a thread records my thoughts

in the sea I surf.

A smuggler once carried me

across a border I never saw.

I hate being free.

Freedom has its own private prison,

and if you want to be free,

you must free yourself from freedom

die inwardly in heaven

to bloom outwardly in chaos.

The world begins within disorder.

I was never sure what I wanted, not like others

not peace of mind,

but a mind capable of holding peace and chaos

in the same trembling hand.

What deceived me was neither hunger nor approval,

but the empathy of emptiness.

I always saw a version of myself hollow,

and back then I did not know what I would become:

a stone among the sand,

weightless yet buried.

What could be worse?

It makes me laugh

this tension between me and the child,

that so-called heavenly bond.

They say they are chosen

but chosen by whom?

By me, perhaps,

in moments I don’t remember choosing.

A good man once visited me

and spoke of the absurd circle of life.

But the highest absurdity, to me,

is believing your own lies.

Existence does not speak your language.

You speak to survive it.

To live once

is sometimes to wake twice.

An ace sleeps beneath the iceberg,

his cards already chosen ,

a joker,

a costume of humiliation.

July was my first April Fool’s.

I was the fool — not a victim —

opening my empty hand

and shouting toward the skyline,

as if the sky ever answered.

Do we refine truth

beneath a skull-shaped night,

armored in darkness,

holding a sword we pretend is justice?

We have not yet accepted

the cruelty within ourselves.

We are only card sleeves

the blow never hits the hand,

only the cover.

A small cage traps itself inside a bottle.

Humans should fear this metaphor

the prison we carry,

thinking it is protection.

You kept only a nostalgic fragment of yourself,

a word that once meant “I.”

Why do you think you contain existence?

No .

the opposite is true.

The cosmos contains you,

while cells repeat you endlessly,

like an echo that forgot its source.

I am not here to live as a notice

pinned to the wall of time.

If you notice something,

speak to yourself,

that is where the answer waits.

When you become aware of boundaries,

life begins to laugh at you in every phase.

If you ever touch the infinite within you,

remember me

the one standing at the bottom,

surfing the edge with smoke in his hand.

not seeking revenge,

only holding chaos

the way silence holds sound,

the way a deaf man offers his ear to emptiness

and, for the first time,

begins to listen.

Wake up at 8 a.m. :

is it really here?

Open the closet, change your life,

close the door of your home,

and greet the world with a smiling face

that is not even yours.

Who created it?

To understand reality,

do not be “real.”

Choose the life of a fool

in another dimension :

they call themselves monks,

the way that speaks Zaraditish.

Why didn’t you speak?

I’m asking you.

You died,

but he lived under your skin.

The scheme of nature lies beneath the coffin.

I find the truth must exist in order to die.

Is the answer happy?

Yes — maybe.

Perhaps you can die while still living.

A cruel vibration

a serpent in your mind,

hungry, the one who eats himself in a circle,

recycling endlessly.

Why don’t we sit beneath a tree

and simply wait for death to come?

Because we cannot die for a century in a single moment.

Rather, life waits a century

for one moment in which we die.

Life, as a wanderer, rests in pieces.

What more could “who” say?

You become a bone for a dog

a toy.

That is what life does.

Be loyal,

or make it loyal to you.

Devote yourself to one frame,

and you lose the image.

Language can lift you

to the highest sense of meaning

but once you reach it,

you dive back

into the meaningless world.

No lies, no truth

only a paradox:

mono or cosmo.

Perhaps I will say no

to both.

Under those last verses,

I switched to the physical moral

wanting a stage to finish his voice.

We cannot bloom under acceptance;

a refusal could be

the lost piece you lack.

And maybe, under some circumstances,

I believe in you

directing my path

to the endless skies

beyond the ground.

What meaning could hold us?

A sweet delusion must be given to the self

as a hope to rise.

Without it, nothing changes

but the creature who refuses

breaks his soul,

shattered.

PacingPlayPlot DevelopmentPoetryStructureThemeArt

About the Creator

LUCCIAN LAYTH

L.LUCCIAN is a writer, poet and philosopher who delves into the unseen. He produces metaphysical contemplation that delineates the line between thinking and living. Inever write to tellsomethingaboutlife,but silences aremyway ofhearing it.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments (1)

Sign in to comment
  • Harper Lewisabout 13 hours ago

    I love this, especially “Freedom has its own private prison, and if you want to be free, you must free yourself from freedom” Not sure why the italicized verse is also underlined, and I would consider losing the underlining as it’s hard on the eyes, and if you don’t underline everything, you can use the underline to emphasize specific lines or words.

Find us on social media

Miscellaneous links

  • Explore
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Support

© 2026 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.